Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is, in its own description to the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, "a public institution established by the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1976 as an independent investment institution."¹ From 1980 it held 10 percent of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and its secretary general from 1976, Ghanim Faris al-Mazrui, represented it on BCCI's board from 1981 and became the bank's chairman.²

BCCI

According to the Kerry-Brown Senate Report, after the fall in 1980 of Abdullah Darweish, the adviser who managed the investments of the ruling family, Sheikh Zayed directed ADIA to acquire a 10 percent stake in BCCI from ICIC, BCCI's Cayman affiliate, which had agreed to buy back the shares of the departing Bank of America. Unlike the ruling family, which appeared to have contributed no more than 500,000 dollars to BCCI's capital before April 1990, ADIA "appears to have made some cash payments for its interest in BCCI," whose book value was about 250 million dollars at the end of 1989.²

After BCCI's closure ADIA joined the Private Department of the UAE president in suing the bank's former executives in Abu Dhabi, and on June 14, 1994, the court awarded it 1.347 billion dollars of the 9.13 billion dollars in damages.³ ADIA held 10 percent of Union National Bank, the former Bank of Credit and Commerce Emirates. In January 1995 BCCI's liquidators agreed to sell the bank's 40 percent stake in it back to the Abu Dhabi government for about 27.4 million dollars, and an Abu Dhabi official said the government would later transfer its 50 percent holding to ADIA; the purchase was completed in May 1996.⁴⁵