Invest AD realigns business to suit market demand

* username: rupertbu

Invest AD, an Abu Dhabi Government-owned investment company, has disbanded its investment banking team and cancelled plans to offer a property fund to outside investors as it realigns its business to suit market demand.

The move reflects a wider trend in which financial companies have streamlined their business models to cope with reduced investor appetite, a dearth of financing from banks and declines in prices of stocks and property brought on by the global downturn. The government-owned conglomerates Dubai Holding and Dubai World have made sweeping structural changes in their businesses to save money and improve efficiency. Smaller, more nimble firms such as Invest AD have made more modest changes of their own.

Invest AD’s investment banking arm was set up about a year and a half ago and headed by Alexandre Carre de Malberg, a veteran of the UK investment bank Rothschild. With few debt issuances, stock listings and merger and acquisition deals to advise on in the region, however, the company decided to rethink the move.