LONDON â€" A top investment executive at Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is leaving to start a hedge fund, people briefed on the development said.
Kamel Maamria has served as head of the global investment portfolio at Qatar Holding, a branch of the Qatar Investment Authority, the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund. He has also served on the board of Harrods on behalf of Qatar Holding.
The fund will be one of relatively few based and focused on the Middle East, with offices in both Qatar and Dubai. Goldman Sachs is expected to act as its prime broker.
Officials at Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund did not return calls for comment. Mr. Maamria, 50, also declined to comment. He was previously a partner at the Boston Consulting Group.
The fund will focus on a fundamental value strategy, mostly in public equities, people briefed on Mr. Maamria’s plans said. And it will primarily, but not exclusively, focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
It is unclear to what extent it will be taking short positions because there are restrictions on doing so in the Middle East.
Anthony Lawler, an executive at GAM, an investment management firm that oversees portfolios of hedge funds for institutional clients, said hedge funds based in places like Qatar were unusual.
“Some investors consider the Middle East market closer to frontier status than developed status, and as a result there are less global managers trading Middle Eastern names,†he said.
Qatar, he added, has “been looking to try to bring asset managers and related services into Qatar, to build Qatar into a financial hub. They have had difficulty doing that, simply because there isn’t the critical mass there. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg problem.â€
