Dubai private equity firm to raise US$4 billion for new fund

UAE. Abraaj Capital, a Dubai-based private equity investor, is aiming to raise US$4 billion for a new fund to invest in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia as it seeks to benefit from “attractive valuations.”
“We raised about US$2.5 billion at the first close,” Abraaj Executive Director Omar Lodhi said in an interview at the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan.
This year and 2010 will be “very exciting years” as valuations in the private equity market follow the fall in public markets with a lag, Lodhi said.