ABU DHABI: Bahrain-listed Investcorp aims to invest in companies that support oil giant Saudi Aramco and is also eyeing health care and education assets being sold in Saudi Arabia’s privatization drive, its executive chairman said.
The private equity and alternative asset firm, which has offices around the world, aims to more than double investments to $50 billion in five years by expanding existing businesses and through acquisitions in areas such as infrastructure.
“We are going to invest in the future of Saudi Arabia,” Mohammed Mahfoodh Alardhi told Reuters in Abu Dhabi.
The firm is eyeing businesses that “live around Aramco” such as chemicals companies and could consider buying Aramco assets that are sold off after its planned listing in 2018, he said.
Riyadh plans to sell about 5 percent of Aramco in an initial public offering (IPO), raising about $100 billion to invest in industries outside the oil sector, part of the Kingdom’s “Vision 2030” plan that aims to wean the nation off reliance on oil.
Saudi Aramco has some non-oil assets, such as a soccer stadium and projects to manage floodwater drainage in Jeddah. Some non-oil businesses could be sold off, sources say.
Investcorp is planning launch a $750 million health care fund, with part of that investment earmarked for Saudi Arabia.
“One of the things that this transformation is going to do in Saudi Arabia is take a lot of burden from the government and put that on the private sector,” Alardhi said. “One of them that we are very interested in is health care.”
Investcorp bought a stake last year in Saudi Arabia’s Al Borg Medical Laboratories, one of the largest private medical laboratory chains in the Gulf. It did not disclose the stake size, although a source said it was looking at 30 to 40 percent.
Under Alardhi, a former Omani air force chief who became the firm’s executive chairman in 2015, Investcorp has more than doubled its assets under his management, which have risen to $21.3 billion by end of June from $10.8 billion.
Alardhi said it wanted that figure to rise to $50 billion in five years, partly by expanding into new areas such as infrastructure and secondary market activities in private equity, as well as investing in growing markets like China.
Alardhi said Investcorp was working on 15 offerings for investors, which included sales of stakes in companies and other structured financial products. He did not give a timeline.
“Our global footprint is increasing, our brand is strengthening – we are no more just a bridge between the Gulf and North America,” he said.
Investcorp eyes businesses linked to Saudi Aramco
Investcorp eyes businesses linked to Saudi Aramco
AI will never replace human creativity, says SRMG CEO
- Speaking to Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, Jomana R. Alrashid expressed pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI
RIYADH: Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of Saudi Research and Media Group, highlighted how AI cannot replace human creativity during a session at The Family Office’s “Investing Is a Sea” summit at Shura Island on Friday.
“You can never replace human creativity. Journalism at the end of the day, and content creation, is all about storytelling, and that’s a creative role that AI does not have the power to do just yet,” Alrashid told the investment summit.
“We will never eliminate that human role which comes in to actually tell that story, do the actual investigative reporting around it, make sure to be able to also tell you what’s news or what’s factual from what’s wrong ... what’s a misinformation from bias, and that’s the bigger role that the editorial player does in the newsroom.”
Speaking on the topic of AI, moderated by Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, the CEO expressed her pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI in a way that was “transformative.”
“We are now translating all of our content leveraging AI. We are also now being able to create documentaries leveraging AI. We now have AI-facilitated fact-checking, AI facilities clipping, transcribing. This is what we believe is the future.”
Alrashid was asked what the journalist of the future would look like. “He’s a journalist and an engineer. He’s someone who needs to understand data. And I think this is another topic that is extremely important, understanding the data that you’re working with,” she said.
“This is something that AI has facilitated as well. I must say that over the past 20 years in the region, especially when it comes to media companies, we did not understand the importance of data.”
The CEO highlighted that previously, media would rely on polling, surveys or viewership numbers, but now more detailed information about what viewers wanted was available.
During the fireside session, Alrashid was asked how the international community viewed the Middle Eastern media. Alrashid said that over the past decades it had played a critical role in informing wider audiences about issues that were extremely complex — politically, culturally and economically — and continued to play that role.
“Right now it has a bigger role to play, given the role again of social media, citizen journalists, content creators. But I also do believe that it has been facilitated by the power that AI has. Now immediately, you can ensure that that kind of content that is being created by credible, tier-A journalists, world-class journalists, can travel beyond its borders, can travel instantly to target different geographies, different people, different countries, in different languages, in different formats.”
She said that there was a big opportunity for Arab media not to be limited to simply Arab consumption, but to finally transcend borders and be available in different languages and to cater to their audiences.
The CEO expressed optimism about the future, emphasizing the importance of having a clear vision, a strong strategy, and full team alignment.
Traditional advertising models, once centered on television and print, were rapidly changing, with social media platforms now dominating advertising revenue.
“It’s drastically changing. Ultimately in the past, we used to compete with one another over viewership. But now we’re also competing with the likes of social media platforms; 80 percent of the advertising revenue in the Middle East goes to the social media platforms, but that means that there’s 80 percent interest opportunities.”
She said that the challenge was to create the right content on these platforms that engaged the target audiences and enabled commercial partnerships. “I don’t think this is a secret, but brands do not like to advertise with news channels. Ultimately, it’s always related with either conflict or war, which is a deterrent to advertisers.
“And that’s why we’ve entered new verticals such as sports. And that’s why we also double down on our lifestyle vertical. Ultimately, we have the largest market share when it comes to lifestyle ... And we’ve launched new platforms such as Billboard Arabia that gives us an entry into music.”
Alrashid said this was why the group was in a strong position to counter the decline in advertising revenues across different platforms, and by introducing new products.
“Another very important IP that we’ve created is events attached to the brands that have been operating in the region for 30-plus years. Any IP or any title right now that doesn’t have an event attached to it is missing out on a very big commercial opportunity that allows us to sit in a room, exchange ideas, talk to one another, get to know one another behind the screen.”
The CEO said that disruption was now constant and often self-driving, adding that the future of the industry was often in storytelling and the ability to innovate by creating persuasive content that connected directly with the audience.
“But the next disruption is going to continue to come from AI. And how quickly this tool and this very powerful technology evolves. And whether we are in a position to cope with it, adapt to it, and absorb it fully or not.”
