Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is a sovereign wealth fund owned by Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates founded for the purpose of investing funds on behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi.

ADIA has never published how much it has in assets but estimates have been between $650 billion to approximately $875 billion USD. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute puts the figure at $627 billion USD.

Due to the nature of its investments ADIA does not adhere to the Islamic Sharia.

History

In 1967, Abu Dhabi created the Financial Investments Board which operated within its Department of Finance and was responsible for managing the Emirate's excess oil revenues. However, in 1976, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding President of the United Arab Emirates and leader of Abu Dhabi made the decision to create the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority instead and separate it from the government as an arms-length organization with its own management. The goal was to invest the Abu Dhabi government’s surpluses across various asset classes, with low risk. At the time it was novel for a government to invest its reserves in anything other than gold or short-term credit. Even today, investment in short-term paper remains the strategy for the vast majority of countries Euromoney April 2006...
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