Qatar Investment Authority
I was contacted by headhunter regarding PE opportunity with QIA in Doha. What is the reputation and comp of QIA and how is the experience of living in Doha? Does QIA offers opportunity to relocate to satellite offices?
Bump
Hi all, I’m curious as to whether anyone has interviewed with the healthcare team as I am targeting them aka one of the industry teams
Hi How is the interview goinh?
bump. Anyone know the comp progression at ME SWF?
Which headhunter? Per?
Comp wise, it's typically a ~20% bump to your existing post tax base (given that Qatar is tax free). Progression is slower than mega funds and IB though.
ME is not a bad place to be at the moment, where there is ample capital to deploy and hence good deal flow, especially with liquidity drying up everywhere else.
Lifestyle wise, the city is not the most exciting but there's definitely pockets of fun and things to do. Work life balance is significantly better and geographically it is great to travel around.
Do they really not give the candidate the benefit of the tax free comp?
I find comp in the middle east to be all over the place. I was offered USD 350k + ~100% bonus tax free for a Senior VP position as well as ~$150k + ~30% bonus for another position because apparently, that's what I should be happy with since its a 15% bump from my post tax comp at that point.
No idea whether this is dictated by the investment firms themselves or whether the recruiters are playing their games in between.
Hello, I wonder if you eventually accepted either of the offer? as I am in the same position rn, and what's the approach in negotiating salary between post and pre tax?
Anything else to consider?
Couple thoughts, pulled from various sources. The good:
- Big global deals
- Work-life balance unparalleled, even compared to other SWF
- QIA often leads deals with their own set process, unlike other SWF (partly driving WLB as they control the process)
- High volume of deals, sector dependent
- Capacity to do deals across the spectrum: Common equity, hybrid, convertibles, etc.
- Ability to interact with very interesting and successful people/funds from all over the globe
The bad:
- Pay does not scale over time
- Limited future growth potential (capped at Director level, like most SWF)
- Potential internal bureaucracy
- Quality of people hit or miss
This is helpful, thanks. How is the brand seen from EU/US PE players in case people wanna go back to homeland?
Agreed that they work on many interesting deals.
It is for the most part respected as an institutional investor. However, returning home after being in the Middle East is always the biggest question mark. At any SWF it will be difficult and that is usually one of the hardest pills to swallow. It's just fundamentally a different gig than traditional PE in the US/Europe.
That said, it offers what many gigs can't (global deals, WLB, tax-free) that might be worth the trade-off. Plus if you network hard, you can meet many many interesting people which could turn into something (most everyone will answer your phone/Linkedin message from a SWF).
Transferring to a satellite office is probably low likelihood in any case and most don't have offices abroad (though this is more of a thing with Mubadala/PIF/etc. expanding in NYC).
It’s a great place as long as you are not a woman, not gay, don’t speak out against civil rights issues, and follow everything the oil gods say. Have fun, hope it’s worth it…
Sign me up!!!
You found a corner to cry?
You forgot being Jewish in your list
Also got approached by QIA. I'm also an Associete 1 at EB in London.
Have you accepted the offer / decided to move? Any hints? What comp / other benefits do the offer?
You get exposed to great deals but going back to London won’t be straightforward (if you wanna go back at one point)
Doha is growing and is an ok city.
Why so? Please elaborate.
????
Any new insights? Thanks
Good shop, people are good
Lol @ the women part. My wife loves it here (way more than in Europe/US). We both have arab origin but were born and raised in Europe.
There are literally no crimes. It’s way safer than in any Western Countries.
Bump
Some Middle Eastern countries are not like the others. Some are much better to live in as an expat and have more things to do.
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