Abu Dhabi-based investment company Mubadala has recorded a 36 percent increase in comprehensive income last year, driven by equity and fund investments as well as asset growth across various sectors.
Mubadala said in its annual report that comprehensive profits increased to a record $19.6 billion in 2020, up from $14.4 billion a year earlier, the company’s highest profit in its history.
Mr. Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Mubadala’s Group Chief Executive Officer, and Managing Director remarked that “we navigated our portfolio through the dramatic macroeconomic decline of early 2020 and decided to accelerate the pace of our capital deployment, ending the year with record profit and growth.”
Assets under management rose 5 percent to $243.3 billion at the end of last year from 2019, with the UAE and the US accounting for the largest geographic areas of the company’s portfolio. Mubadala invested in France, China, and Russia through its sovereign investment alliances in 2020, in addition to its latest capital deployment in India.
“In line with our long-term strategy, we increased our investments in sectors where we have high conviction, and with high-performing fund managers. Technology and life sciences, in particular, have been essential to the world over the last year, and we see those sectors bringing greater opportunity for deeper investment. We have worked to be well-positioned in these areas and key geographies as the global economy continue to recover.” Mr. Al Mubarak added.
According to Mubadala, direct and indirect private equity investments account for 34 percent of the company’s portfolio, with 29 percent in public markets, real estate, and infrastructure accounting for 14 percent.
The sovereign wealth fund said that new capital investment increased to $29.4 billion from $18.5 billion in 2019. That includes $1.1 billion in Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms, India’s biggest telecom network.
Other investments include $0.7 billion in Silver Lake, a global private-equity investor, $0.8 billion in Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer, $0.59 billion in PCI Pharma, a leading global pharma services supplier, and $2.0 billion through partnerships with CVC, Citadel, iSquared Capital and Apax Partners.
Mubadala earned $28.3 billion in revenue from mature properties and distributions from investments local and abroad in 2020, including $4.5 billion from the sale of a 39 percent stake in Borealis to OMV, the company’s largest-ever single monetization.
Mubadala is at the core of the government’s plans to diversify Abu Dhabi’s revenue base and produce income from sources other than oil. Aerospace, information and communications technology, semiconductors, metals and mining, renewable energy, oil and gas, and petrochemicals are all part of the company’s portfolio of investments, which covers five continents.
In the UAE, the company has stakes in Emirates Global Aluminium, green-energy company Masdar, aerospace manufacturing company Strata, satellite communications company Yahsat, and Mubadala Petroleum.
Mubadala is an anchor investor in SoftBank’s Vision Fund. As part of a $1.2 billion Sovereign Investment Partnership between the UAE and the UK, the fund has promised to invest $1.01 billion in the UK’s life sciences industry over the next five years.
Mubadala was already an investor in technology, artificial intelligence, and agriculture technology, but the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified its shift to that field to take advantage of emerging technologies shaping renewable energy, life sciences, mobility, automation, robotics, and connectivity.
Mr. Al Mubarak stated that the firm is considering further opportunities in India, China, and other South-East Asian markets.
Mubadala announced earlier this year that it had restructured its business into four lines of business: UAE investments, innovative investments, direct investments, and real estate and infrastructure, and that the new operating model will drive the company into the next phase of growth.
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