Exclusive: GIH’s Ghunaim says lessons have been learnt from default (Registration required)

At the beginning of the year Kuwait’s biggest investment company, Gulf Investment House, announced that it had defaulted on about $2.5 billion in
debt. It became the first big financial institution in the Gulf to default since the credit crisis began. In an exclusive interview its chairwoman Maha AlGhunaim tells Dominic O’Neill how she plans to turn the company’s fortunes around.

Two years ago Maha Al Ghunaim, the chairwoman of Global Investment House (GIH), was the darling of the Middle East’s investment community. Now, the
company she helped create is an emblem of all that has gone wrong in the Gulf.

As Euromoney saw today, however, the chairwoman is still to be found in the brand new skyscraper she built for her company at the height of the Gulf’s boom.
Much of the bank’s human capital appears to be intact too. Despite an overall reduction of 10% in the workforce, and salary cuts of up to 20% for senior staff,
no-one above the rank of vice-president has quit, according to Al Ghunaim.