Description
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, founded to invest funds on behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi. It manages the emirate's excess oil reserves and is estimated to manage $968 billion. ADIA is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
ADIA's operations have been characterized as secretive and opaque.
History
In 1967, Abu Dhabi emirate created the Financial Investments Board which operated within its Department of Finance and was responsible for managing the Emirate's excess oil revenues. However, in 1976, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding president of the United Arab Emirates, converted it into the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The goal was to invest the Abu Dhabi government's surpluses across various asset classes, with low risk. At the time it was novel for a government to invest its reserves in anything other than gold or short-term credit. Even today, investment in short-term paper remains the strategy for the vast majority of countries.
In the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal of the 1990s, ADIA reportedly lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The operations of ADIA have historically and to the present been secretive and opaque.
The fund is a member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
