Banking & Finance Bahrain’s Investcorp to expand southeast Asia footprint By Reuters January 17, 2023 Bahrain News Agency Investcorp’s industrial real estate holdings in the US are valued at $5.1bn across 43 million sq ft Bahrain-based Investcorp is working on multiple initiatives in Indonesia, including one in partnership with the nation’s sovereign wealth fund as it seeks to expand its footprint in southeast Asia, the firm’s co-chief executive officer said. “We have two terrific initiatives in Indonesia right now, and hopefully, a third very soon in partnership with the local sovereign wealth fund,” Hazem Ben-Gacem told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos. The first is Indian dialysis service provider NephroPlus which is set to expand into Indonesia, and the second is a recently acquired leading local specialty retailer, he said. The country’s natural resources mean it stands to benefit from higher inflation and rising commodity prices, said Ben-Gacem, whose firm managed $50 billion in assets as of December 2022. “The macro momentum is terrific, (and the Indonesian) government has been doing a good job of making it a very investment- and development-focused country,” Ben-Gacem said. A potential global economic slowdown will open up many tactical opportunities for private equity firms in 2023, Investcorp’s co-CEO Rishi Kapoor said, adding that his fund was focused on investing in logistics and real estate, increasingly available at “more reasonable” prices. Two-thirds of private and public sector economists surveyed by the WEF expect a global recession this year.
