Shuaa charts new course to wealth management - FT.com

Shuaa Capital’s new chief executive wants to rebuild the Dubai-based investment bank as a platform for wealthy clients across the Middle East as traditional business lines languish in a prolonged downturn.

Investment banking fees are drying up fast as volumes fall on Gulf markets, putting banks’ business plans in jeopardy and triggering redundancies.

Michael Philipp, who says the outlook will remain tough for the next 18 months, plans to use the downtime to turn Shuaa from Dubai’s brokerage-focused, in-house investment bank into an advisory business spread across Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

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