MUBADALA UPBEAT AS IT BUILDS ON RECORD 2021 RESULTS
▶ Khaldoon Al Mubarak hails fund’s ‘resilience over long-term’ as it posts 70% rise in comprehensive income
Mubadala Investment Company’s chief executive is confident about the success of the Abu Dhabi fund’s investment strategy in the coming decades after it posted the best annual results since its launch 20 years ago.
The company’s comprehensive income rose 70 per cent to Dh122 billion ($33.2bn) last year compared with Dh72bn recorded in the preceding year.
The 2020 results were also a record as the sovereign fund boosted its assets and returns despite the pandemic-driven macroeconomic decline.
Two years of record performance by Mubadala is a testament to its ethos of long-term investment view and evolution and alignment of the company’s portfolio with changing economic dynamics. A pivot to technology and life science, while nurturing some of its legacy assets to generate consistent returns has been at the heart of the company’s investment strategy.
“It has been our long-term strategy that has supported not just the results for last year, but also our portfolio’s resilience over the long-term,” Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Mubadala’s group chief executive and managing director of Mubadala Investment Company told The National.
“It’s the progress we’ve made in the past 20 years that makes me enthusiastic for the decades ahead.”
Assets under management for the first time climbed beyond the trillion-dirham threshold to reach Dh1.04tn at the end of 2021 from Dh894bn a year earlier.
The fund invested Dh125bn during 2021 in key sectors in the UAE and abroad.
In January, Mubadala bagged the global sovereign wealth fund industry’s top honour, becoming the “2021 Fund of the Year”, a recognition of its investment acumen and the part it has played in helping the industry to grow last year despite economic headwinds.
The award, from industry tracker Global SWF, is also an acknowledgement of Mubadala’s high level of deal activity last year, partnerships it has forged with governments and investment entities across the world, and the crucial role it has played at home in the economic recovery.
At the end of the last year, 34 per cent of Mubadala’s portfolio comprised direct and indirect investments in private equity, with 31 per cent in public markets and 14 per cent in property and infrastructure.
Some of the major deals and partnerships Mubadala secured last year include listing of its wholly-owned semiconductor manufacturing unit, GlobalFoundries, in a $2.6bn initial public offering on the Nasdaq. It also listed Yahsat on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in a deal that raised $731 million.
Last year, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Taqa also joined forces with Mubadala to become shareholders in Masdar to boost the clean energy company’s renewable power capacity to more than 50 gigawatts by 2030.
“2021 was an extraordinary year, marking 20 years of Mubadala’s operations as a company and with major milestones across key sectors for the UAE,” Mr Al Mubarak said.
“I’m proud of the significant achievements for the UAE: taking Yahsat public on the ADX, creating a greater champion for renewables in Masdar and continuing to develop a world-class health network for Abu Dhabi.”