Dubai’s Shuaa bolsters investment bank with Credit Suisse hires

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Dubai-based Shuaa Capital is looking to rebuild its investment banking franchise by bringing in former Credit Suisse bankers amid increasing deal activity in the Middle East.

Shuaa in May appointed Wafik Ben Mansour, a Credit Suisse managing director who spent 15 years at the Swiss lender, as head of its investment bank. The firm has now also hired another Credit Suisse veteran, Rustam Rizvanov, Shuaa’s chief executive officer Fawad Tariq Khan said in an interview.

With the hires, the firm is emerging as one of several banks benefiting from the Swiss bank’s takeover by UBS Group earlier this year.

“From our perspective, we saw it as an opportunity to get good talent and, secondly, potentially get a team,” Khan said. “We benefit from the fact that international investment banks have been cutting back.”

Shuaa is looking to add two to three more people and is considering more candidates from Credit Suisse as well as investment professionals from asset managers including Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Khan said.

Shuaa’s foot-print in Dubai’s financial sector

With roots going back decades, Shuaa has been involved in landmark deals, including the $5bn Dubai initial public offering of global ports operator DP World in 2007. Since the global financial crisis, however, the firm has undergone a series of restructurings, ownership and management changes.

Its latest round of hiring comes amid a flurry of capital markets activity in the Middle East. Buoyed by high oil prices, state-backed regional entities have gone on an acquisition spree, and there’s been a rush of stock market listings in the main financial centers of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Firms have been bulking up to cope. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank hired former Citigroup and Natixis bankers to key positions in recent months, while boutique firms like Moelis and Rothschild have also been steadily adding staff.

“The way I see it is we build a strong advisory team and we pair it up with our sales and trading platform,” Shuaa’s Khan said. “Then we’re able to take on mandates especially in the debt capital markets and mergers and acquisition space that others are unable to do as effectively or wouldn’t do.” The firm will target family offices, mid-size deals and expansion in Saudi Arabia, he said.