Why Money from the Middle East?

I understand these oil-money countries want to throw around money to diversify their economies and they have these massive SWFs. The global GDP rank for Saudi Arabia is 17, the UAE is 28, Qatar is 52, and Kuwait is 56. Why are top VC / PE managers heading there opposed to Western / European institutional investors?

9 Comments
 

“The GDP for SaudiArabia is 17, the UAE is 28, Qatar is 52, and Kuwait is 56.”

No.

GDP:

Saudi Arabia: $1.1T

UAE: $507.1B

Qatar: $236.3B

Kuwait: $175.4B

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Why the MS? MS the OP not me. My numbers are correct. 

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
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I was alluding to their individual country rank in terms of GDP across the world.

Oh

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Because most Western European nations are a pain in the ass to deal with and have objectively made it their mission to hamstring the private sector growth opportunities in their countries with regulation. Meanwhile oil-countries as you pointed out are gearing for growth and actively looking to put money to work and see it grow, often passing favorable legislation to attract talent and create opportunities for external investors to come in and provide validation to the rest of the capital markets. Also as the first commenter stated, they just pay better. EU and UK pay scales blow chunks and you have higher taxes to boot making it a no brainer on who many would rather work for/with.

"If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

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