[photopress:real_estate_SoudBaalawi.jpg,full,alignright]Soud Ba’alawy, seen here, the executive chairman of the Dubai Groups which is planning to invest around $2 billion in the Chinese financial and property sectors over the next year or so.
Dubai Group is part of Dubai Holding, which is owned by Dubai ruler Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Under his guidance Dubai has gone from being a little known backwater into a serious world player.
Initially the investments in China will focus mainly on the investment banking sector as well as hospitality-orientated real estate initially.
Soud Ba’alawy said, ‘It depends upon the opportunity, but I think that we have the potential to invest up to $2 billion of equity over the next, let’s say, 12-18 months.’
‘Tomorrow you might get a $200 million deal, tomorrow you might get a $2 billion deal — if it makes sense, we’ll do it.
‘But at least planning-wise we say, ‘okay, maybe $2 billion would probably do for the next 12-18 months’.
As Everett Dirksen never said, ‘A billion here, a billion there and soon you’re talking real money.’
Source: Gulf Daily News