Sovereign wealth fund | |
Industry | Institutional investor |
Founded | 1976 |
Headquarters | Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates |
Key people
|
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Managing Director |
Total assets | Unpublished |
Website | www |
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is a sovereign wealth fund owned by Emirate of Abu Dhabi (in United Arab Emirates) founded for the purpose of investing funds on behalf of the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It manages the Emirate’s excess oil reserves, estimated to be as much as $500 billion. Its portfolio grows at an annual rate of about 10% compounded. The fund is a member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds and is therefore signed up to the Santiago Principles on best practice in managing sovereign wealth funds.
ADIA has never published how much it has in assets but estimates have been between $800 billion to approximately $875 billion USD.The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute puts the figure at US$792 billion.
In 1967, Abu Dhabi emirate created the Financial Investments Board which operated within its Department of Finance and was responsible for managing the Emirate's excess oil revenues. However, in 1976, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding President of the United Arab Emirates and leader of Abu Dhabi made the decision to create the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority instead and separate it from the government as an arms-length organization with its own management. The goal was to invest the Abu Dhabi government’s surpluses across various asset classes, with low risk. At the time it was novel for a government to invest its reserves in anything other than gold or short-term credit. Even today, investment in short-term paper remains the strategy for the vast majority of countries.
ADIA manages a substantial amount of capital, and is one of the world's largest investment funds. Due to its size, the fund has been influential in international finance. In 2008, ADIA co-chaired the International Working Group of 26 sovereign wealth funds that produced the "Generally Accepted Principles and Practices of sovereign wealth funds" (known as the Santiago Principles). These principles were created to demonstrate to home and recipient countries and the international financial markets that sovereign wealth funds had robust internal frameworks and governance practices and that their investments were made only on an economic and financial basis.