Saudi female banker ties up with fund to deploy $100 billion in kingdom
Kimimasa Mayama/Bloomberg
Nahed Taher, the first female Saudi senior economist at National Commercial Bank and the founder of Gulf One Investment Bank, has set up a joint investment vehicle with the investment arm of one the largest pension funds in the United States that will deploy as much as US$100 billion in capital towards financing projects, leveraging the kingdom’s privatisation agenda.
"It's been hard to finance projects in the past because it has been short term debt and very expensive," Ms Taher, who now heads Seeds Consulting, told The National. "So the solution is to increase the long-term debt for profitable projects with a return on equity and investment that is much above the interest rate, and create serious amount of jobs to compensate for the loss of employment while restructuring, and new jobs for newcomers."
Ms Taher teamed up with the fund about four months ago with the goal of funnelling investments in infrastructure and public private partnership (PPPs) projects. The fund, which she requested not be named, has an investment portfolio that includes convention centres, tourism related projects, sporting venues and stadiums, hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as airports and public transportation, public works and utilities in addition to universities and colleges.
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