Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi missing
Rescuers searched a lake in Morocco on Saturday for the man who oversees one of the world’s largest state-owned wealth funds after he disappeared in an air accident.
A glider carrying Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the managing director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, crashed Friday into the lake 20 miles southeast of the Moroccan capital, Rabat, state news agencies reported.
The glider’s pilot was rescued and is in good condition, the reports said. But the search for Nahyan, whom Forbes named the 27th-most powerful person in the world last year, continued.
Abu Dhabi is the most influential and wealthy of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates. Nahyan, a member of the Emirates royal family, is the younger brother of Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan.
The secretive wealth fund, established amid an oil boom in 1976, draws 70% of all surplus revenue from Abu Dhabi’s petroleum sales, the rest going to a sister fund.
ADIA has an estimated $627 billion in assets, with stakes in Citigroup, Hyatt and Gatwick Airport, the second-largest in Britain, according to reports compiled by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, which monitors the activities of such funds.
The fund keeps an extremely low profile, rarely trumpeting deals or buying greater than 5% stakes in businesses.
“It is our policy that we are unable to provide details about our managed assets,” Nahyan told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt this year during a rare interview.
“ADIA, in the past 30 years, gained fame not only for our size, but also for our behavior as a shrewd investor and a responsible and trustworthy partner.”
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