Investcorp beats 2026 asset and fund-raising targets despite war disruption

Bahrain’s Investcorp has beaten both its fund-raising and assets under management targets in the 2026 financial year despite the months-long war that has disrupted investment activity in the Gulf region, its chief investment officer has said.

Backed by Abu Dhabi's sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company, Investcorp raised “north of $7 billion” in financing for the fiscal year ended June 30, with a large share coming from investors outside the region, Rishi Kapoor, who is also the vice chairman of the company, told The National.

The company aims to again secure $7 billion or more in new financing during the current fiscal year despite the uncertainty.

“It will be a very, very similar pace of fund-raising … as in our business there is cadence,” Mr Kapoor said. “Investcorp is a large enough and diversified enough platform. If it's not going to be North American private equity this year [for example], it's going to be something else.”

Global firm

Despite its deep roots in the Gulf region, Investcorp is a global firm “first and foremost”, and that is a profile it aims to keep building to insulate itself from episodic geopolitical or energy market-driven economic uncertainties in the region.

“What I mean by being a global firm is that 90 per cent of our investing activity is between the US and Europe,” he said. “We have more than three quarters of our fund-raising activity outside the Gulf.”

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Investcorp, which is known for its early investments in Tiffany & Co and Gucci, hit $64 billion in assets at the end of June, “slightly ahead” of its $63 billion target. The growth in the company’s asset base in the 2027 fiscal year, however, is a “bit hard to pin down”, according to Mr Kapoor.

“The net increase in AUMs is heavily influenced by the exits and calls, and that is very episodic,” he said, adding that the company remains on track to achieve its goal of hitting $100 billion in AUM.

The Bahrain-headquartered alternative asset manager is “effectively playing the role of a conduit for both capital and investment opportunities into the Gulf and out of the Gulf”, acting as a two-way street, Mr Kapoor said.

Undeterred

That is the role the company plans to keep playing, and it is undeterred by the short-term war-driven volatility, which he said is short-term hiccups for longer-term investors such as Investcorp.

A permanent deal to end the Iran war remains elusive despite several rounds of diplomatic efforts. US President Donald Trump last week warned of a possible new military operation against Iran, with US media reporting that a fresh offensive could begin after the November 3 midterm elections.

Tehran has warned it will attack US interests and allies in the region and widen the scope of the war if the US launches fresh attacks on its territory.

However, despite the war-driven economic disruption and geopolitical headwinds, investment and fund-raising activity in the Gulf region has held up relatively well.

Global private equity player Brookfield in July announced the first close of its new Saudi and wider Middle East-focused private equity fund. The $2 billion first close was anchored by investors including Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.

In the same month, Blackstone, Brookfield and KKR signed a $16 billion lease and leaseback deal with Kuwait Oil Company, taking a combined 49 per cent stake in its crude oil pipeline network. In March, Blackstone, the $1.3 trillion alternative investment manager, also announced a $250 million investment in Abu Dhabi's Advanced Digital Gaming Technology. It followed the deal up with another partnership in April, when it teamed up with Dubai Aerospace Enterprise to invest about $1.6 billion annually in aircraft leasing.

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'Bump on the road'

Investcorp’s own appetite for investment in the Middle East region, which, along with its broader Asian assets, accounts for 10 per cent of its total portfolio, remains strong.

Earlier this week, the company’s Saudi Pre-IPO Growth Fund joined a consortium led by AlTouq Group and Thara Future Investments to acquire Saudi Arabia's Reda Gulf Holding.

Although the continuing conflict has affected some of Investcorp’s exits from its existing regional investments, the disruption is nothing but a “bump on the road” in the broader global investing context, Mr Kapoor said.

Investment rationale

The push across the Gulf to invest in expanding infrastructure means the region is still an attractive investment destination, he said.

“The prospects for the region from an investment perspective are still pretty much the same, if not stronger, and I'm not minimising the short-term disruption of the conflict here,” Mr Kapoor said.

“Any conflict is sad and frankly distressing,” but there has been little impact on the primary economic diversification visions that are driving the regional economies, he said.

“If anything, these countries and the leadership are now even more convinced around the need for them to build greater resilience” in infrastructure, supply chains, logistics and transportation, energy, utilities, defence and food security sectors, he said.

“We see this whole episode … as laying down effectively a second foundational layer, building upon the original vision of economic diversification,” Mr Kapoor said. “That will drive much more thoughtful spending and capex by governments alongside private capital.”

Set up in 1982, Investcorp has grown to become a global investor deploying capital through its six business lines: private equity, real estate, absolute return investments, infrastructure, credit management and strategic capital.

The company, which maintained a brisk pace of acquisitions through the Covid-19 pandemic to capitalise on lower asset valuations, has continued its aggressive portfolio expansion since and looks to grow its asset base in markets such as the US, India and China.