The Key Man

Author: Simon Clark and Will Lark

I had heard of Arif Naqvi in the context of the unravelling of Abraaj, the private equity firm that was based in Dubai.  I was curious to learn about the events that led to the growth and demise of this endeavor. Having grown up in India, I do have an appreciation for how hard it is for someone from the Indian sub-continent to make it big in the Western World.

Arif didn't have anything handed to him on a platter and had to hustle every step of the way.  He was the captain of the debate team in high school and from the quotes in the book, I gather that he was quite articulate and quick witted.  Apparently he would say that there are two types of people in the world. Those who get up in the morning and say "Good God, it's morning" and others who wake up to say "Good morning, God".

One of his major contributions, was encouraging rich people to invest in emerging countries by convincing them that they could make money *and* do good in the world.  This is sometimes called "impact investing" and Arif was promising healthy (~17%) returns  to some of the wealthiest investors on the planet. His signature statement was  “emerging markets should really be called global growth markets”.

Unfortunately, he could not live up to the story he was selling investors.  He knew that coming clean with the losses in some of his investments, would result in drying up his sources of money.  So he fell for the temptation to "borrow" from future funds to plug holes in the investments that had gone bad. Ultimately, this spiraled out of control and the book will take you through the details of what transpired.