The Indian-born financier who helped open the floodgates to Middle Eastern wealth for Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion Vision Fund is trying his second act. This time, he is going solo.
At MushyBank Group Corp.’s splashy tech automobile, Rajeev Misra performed a key position in securing commitments price $45 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and $15 billion from Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. Investments in high-flying startups adopted — Uber Technologies Inc. and WeWork Inc. amongst them – however many bets failed as markets turned. Misra largely stepped again from that enterprise in 2022 after a tenure marred by inner clashes and funding writedowns.
Undeterred by these losses, Misra is now trying a comeback — this time in credit score. He’s even leaning on the identical Middle Eastern community to lift cash. It’s a bet that has shades of the sort of chutzpah he and Son displayed final time spherical, although Misra now says he is decided to do higher after watching the funding errors made within the aftermath of MushyBank’s scramble to rent individuals.
“I’ve discovered my classes,” Misra, 62, mentioned in an interview with Bloomberg News. He’s already raised $6.8 billion for his One Investment Management from backers together with Mubadala and Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Royal Group. Misra is searching for to spice up the scale of the fund to greater than $10 billion, and hopes to get Saudi Arabia to speculate as properly.
While he is vowing to deploy shoppers’ money with a dose of warning, it is an endeavor that can include its personal set of dangers, significantly given his previous historical past with Middle Eastern cash. A world financial system slammed by two wars and different geopolitical upheaval may as soon as once more convey market turbulence. And even Misra acknowledges there are limits to the area’s largess. “Endless properly, bottomless pit? There is not any such factor,” he mentioned. “If you lose cash, that pit is closed.”
UAE Passport
Regardless of whether or not Misra succeeds or fails, it is plain that he is a uncommon outsider to be entrusted with the Middle East’s billions, reflecting astute maneuvering and a capability to keep up key relationships regardless of the blow-ups on the Vision Fund. He additionally stands out as one of many few buyers who’ve deftly sidestepped the financial rivalry between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, drawing cash from each side.
The clearest signal of his relationship with Abu Dhabi’s ruling household is his UAE passport — one of many world’s strongest journey paperwork and handed out to a really choose group of foreigners. Misra travels to the area not less than six instances a 12 months, staying on the swanky Four Seasons Hotel in Abu Dhabi and, in Riyadh, on the Ritz-Carlton — the location of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 2017 crackdown.
Home to sovereign wealth funds that management over $4 trillion in belongings, the Middle East is central to Misra’s plans. Five of the ten most lively state-backed entities in 2023 have been from the Gulf, whilst world friends pulled again — the PIF alone spent $31.6 billion.
During the down years of Vision Fund, Misra stored in contact together with his Middle Eastern backers and, over in-person conferences, appraised them concerning the standing of investments. This, together with efforts to maximise their returns, helped him to retain their belief even when many bets by Vision Fund soured.
Vision Fund
The Vision Fund was unveiled shortly after MushyBank’s Son had pulled off what was till then his largest guess — the $32 billion acquisition of chipmaker ARM Holdings Plc.
“Masayoshi Son instructed me, ‘Rajeev, the following revolution is coming, AI. I would like to speculate, and we have to elevate cash,'” Misra mentioned. That dialog, in mid-2016, was mere months earlier than the Vision Fund was launched.
The financier’s relationship with the Japanese government dates again to the early 2000s. At Deutsche Bank AG, he helped Son finance the biggest leveraged buyout in Asia on the time — the 2006 buy of Vodafone Group Plc’s Japanese wi-fi enterprise. At MushyBank, Misra was the architect of a mortgage package deal that helped Sprint Corp. — the US provider Son acquired in 2012 — stave off chapter.
Those offers earned Son’s belief, propelling Misra to the highest echelons of MushyBank and inserting him on the coronary heart of Vision Fund’s origin story. “We put collectively a small presentation, and went to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia,” he recounts.
“We’ve by no means managed any cash, we have no individuals and he wished to lift $100 billion,” Misra mentioned.
The PIF dedicated $45 billion over the course of a 45-minute assembly — attended by the crown prince and arrange by the fund’s governor Yasir Al Rumayyan. Abu Dhabi got here in with a $15 billion pledge of its personal.
“Then we scrambled to rent individuals,” Misra mentioned. The funding selections that adopted culminated in a markdown of greater than $16 billion for the primary Vision Fund within the 12 months to March 2023.
The fund has now returned virtually 70% of the cash raised to buyers and even at a conservative valuation, it’s price 1.2 instances the capital raised, based on information supplied by MushyBank. An analogous funding within the S&P 500 Index would have doubled in worth in the course of the interval.
Misra says he now not has an lively position within the Vision Fund, though he’s nonetheless on the funding committee. He’s additionally concerned in worker compensation and in guaranteeing most returns for the fund’s restricted companions, the biggest being PIF and Mubadala. He considers his stint one of the best training he may have obtained in investing.
He says he is nonetheless shut with Son, however acknowledges they met simply twice final 12 months and largely atone for the telephone.
OneIM
Part of the rationale for his choice to step again from the Japanese automobile, Misra says, was to keep away from a battle of curiosity as he began to chart out his subsequent act. The new enterprise will deploy capital throughout asset lessons amid turmoil in markets world wide, specializing in credit score — an asset supervisor that goes past investing within the expertise sector.
Misra was born in 1962 within the Indian metropolis of Jamshedpur, named for the founding father of Tata Group, the place his father labored on the time. He studied on the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi earlier than transferring to the University of Pennsylvania. From there, armed with an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, he launched into a profession that took him from Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank to UBS — and briefly Fortress Investment Group, which was acquired by MushyBank.
He nonetheless spends just a few weeks yearly in his sprawling villa on a four-acre plot near the center of New Delhi — a metropolis the place his household was as soon as pressured to lease a single room on a rooftop amid a money crunch after his father unexpectedly died of a cardiac arrest.
Misra began to construct his Middle Eastern connections in 2013, sensing a chance in a pocket of wealth that was a black field to many buyers. Gulf state-backed funds didn’t have a significant international presence on the time.
He shortly understood the significance of face time with the important thing individuals to get entry to the massive checks, and began to make frequent journeys to the area. Over time, he is strung collectively a Rolodex that features the PIF’s Rumayyan, with whom he is typically noticed on the kingdom’s annual flagship Future Investment Initiative.
In Abu Dhabi, Misra works carefully with the internal circle of Sheikh Tahnoon, who’s on the helm of a $1.5 trillion empire. His key contacts within the UAE capital embrace Syed Basar Shueb, chief government officer of the $246 billion International Holding Co; Sofia Lasky, a outstanding government who sits on the boards of a number of native firms; and Peng Xiao, CEO of G42 — a agency that is on the coronary heart of Sheikh Tahnoon’s push into AI.
At his new fund, Misra is eyeing returns of 20%, acknowledging the times of 30% returns on giant swimming pools of capital could also be over. He believes credit score has not less than one other 12 months to play out and will look to foray into personal fairness after that, pledging to take fewer dangers this time round. That’s a break from the previous when the Vision Fund injected billions into a variety of startups at hovering valuations and shook up the enterprise capital business.
OneIM is low key by these requirements. An internet site arrange just lately has few particulars on operations or investments. Misra plans to maintain it that manner, whereas his handpicked crew of 25 funding professionals — led by trusted long-time lieutenants Munish Varma and Yanni Pipiliseach of whom labored with him at Deutsche Bank and Vision Fund — scour for alternatives primarily within the US and Europe.
Last 12 months, it supplied loans to WeWork, based on securities filings by the now-bankrupt workplace firm. It’s additionally supported Apollo Global Management Inc.’s leveraged buyout of Wagamama proprietor The Restaurant Group Plc, Bloomberg News reported this month.
In one other departure from what he described as a chaotic method at his earlier job, OneIM has invested solely $1 billion of the $7 billion it has raised to this point, Misra mentioned. Once alliances, platforms, and an even bigger crew are in place, deploying capital quicker goes to be simple, he mentioned. “You cannot pressure me to deploy quicker except odds are in my favor.”
When requested about his profession trajectory and what the longer term could maintain, Misra quotes from an astrologer that his household has consulted for many years.
“It will go upwards and upwards,” he says with a smile.
At MushyBank Group Corp.’s splashy tech automobile, Rajeev Misra performed a key position in securing commitments price $45 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and $15 billion from Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. Investments in high-flying startups adopted — Uber Technologies Inc. and WeWork Inc. amongst them – however many bets failed as markets turned. Misra largely stepped again from that enterprise in 2022 after a tenure marred by inner clashes and funding writedowns.
Undeterred by these losses, Misra is now trying a comeback — this time in credit score. He’s even leaning on the identical Middle Eastern community to lift cash. It’s a bet that has shades of the sort of chutzpah he and Son displayed final time spherical, although Misra now says he is decided to do higher after watching the funding errors made within the aftermath of MushyBank’s scramble to rent individuals.
“I’ve discovered my classes,” Misra, 62, mentioned in an interview with Bloomberg News. He’s already raised $6.8 billion for his One Investment Management from backers together with Mubadala and Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Royal Group. Misra is searching for to spice up the scale of the fund to greater than $10 billion, and hopes to get Saudi Arabia to speculate as properly.
While he is vowing to deploy shoppers’ money with a dose of warning, it is an endeavor that can include its personal set of dangers, significantly given his previous historical past with Middle Eastern cash. A world financial system slammed by two wars and different geopolitical upheaval may as soon as once more convey market turbulence. And even Misra acknowledges there are limits to the area’s largess. “Endless properly, bottomless pit? There is not any such factor,” he mentioned. “If you lose cash, that pit is closed.”
UAE Passport
Regardless of whether or not Misra succeeds or fails, it is plain that he is a uncommon outsider to be entrusted with the Middle East’s billions, reflecting astute maneuvering and a capability to keep up key relationships regardless of the blow-ups on the Vision Fund. He additionally stands out as one of many few buyers who’ve deftly sidestepped the financial rivalry between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, drawing cash from each side.
The clearest signal of his relationship with Abu Dhabi’s ruling household is his UAE passport — one of many world’s strongest journey paperwork and handed out to a really choose group of foreigners. Misra travels to the area not less than six instances a 12 months, staying on the swanky Four Seasons Hotel in Abu Dhabi and, in Riyadh, on the Ritz-Carlton — the location of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 2017 crackdown.
Home to sovereign wealth funds that management over $4 trillion in belongings, the Middle East is central to Misra’s plans. Five of the ten most lively state-backed entities in 2023 have been from the Gulf, whilst world friends pulled again — the PIF alone spent $31.6 billion.
During the down years of Vision Fund, Misra stored in contact together with his Middle Eastern backers and, over in-person conferences, appraised them concerning the standing of investments. This, together with efforts to maximise their returns, helped him to retain their belief even when many bets by Vision Fund soured.
Vision Fund
The Vision Fund was unveiled shortly after MushyBank’s Son had pulled off what was till then his largest guess — the $32 billion acquisition of chipmaker ARM Holdings Plc.
“Masayoshi Son instructed me, ‘Rajeev, the following revolution is coming, AI. I would like to speculate, and we have to elevate cash,'” Misra mentioned. That dialog, in mid-2016, was mere months earlier than the Vision Fund was launched.
The financier’s relationship with the Japanese government dates again to the early 2000s. At Deutsche Bank AG, he helped Son finance the biggest leveraged buyout in Asia on the time — the 2006 buy of Vodafone Group Plc’s Japanese wi-fi enterprise. At MushyBank, Misra was the architect of a mortgage package deal that helped Sprint Corp. — the US provider Son acquired in 2012 — stave off chapter.
Those offers earned Son’s belief, propelling Misra to the highest echelons of MushyBank and inserting him on the coronary heart of Vision Fund’s origin story. “We put collectively a small presentation, and went to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia,” he recounts.
“We’ve by no means managed any cash, we have no individuals and he wished to lift $100 billion,” Misra mentioned.
The PIF dedicated $45 billion over the course of a 45-minute assembly — attended by the crown prince and arrange by the fund’s governor Yasir Al Rumayyan. Abu Dhabi got here in with a $15 billion pledge of its personal.
“Then we scrambled to rent individuals,” Misra mentioned. The funding selections that adopted culminated in a markdown of greater than $16 billion for the primary Vision Fund within the 12 months to March 2023.
The fund has now returned virtually 70% of the cash raised to buyers and even at a conservative valuation, it’s price 1.2 instances the capital raised, based on information supplied by MushyBank. An analogous funding within the S&P 500 Index would have doubled in worth in the course of the interval.
Misra says he now not has an lively position within the Vision Fund, though he’s nonetheless on the funding committee. He’s additionally concerned in worker compensation and in guaranteeing most returns for the fund’s restricted companions, the biggest being PIF and Mubadala. He considers his stint one of the best training he may have obtained in investing.
He says he is nonetheless shut with Son, however acknowledges they met simply twice final 12 months and largely atone for the telephone.
OneIM
Part of the rationale for his choice to step again from the Japanese automobile, Misra says, was to keep away from a battle of curiosity as he began to chart out his subsequent act. The new enterprise will deploy capital throughout asset lessons amid turmoil in markets world wide, specializing in credit score — an asset supervisor that goes past investing within the expertise sector.
Misra was born in 1962 within the Indian metropolis of Jamshedpur, named for the founding father of Tata Group, the place his father labored on the time. He studied on the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi earlier than transferring to the University of Pennsylvania. From there, armed with an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, he launched into a profession that took him from Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank to UBS — and briefly Fortress Investment Group, which was acquired by MushyBank.
He nonetheless spends just a few weeks yearly in his sprawling villa on a four-acre plot near the center of New Delhi — a metropolis the place his household was as soon as pressured to lease a single room on a rooftop amid a money crunch after his father unexpectedly died of a cardiac arrest.
Misra began to construct his Middle Eastern connections in 2013, sensing a chance in a pocket of wealth that was a black field to many buyers. Gulf state-backed funds didn’t have a significant international presence on the time.
He shortly understood the significance of face time with the important thing individuals to get entry to the massive checks, and began to make frequent journeys to the area. Over time, he is strung collectively a Rolodex that features the PIF’s Rumayyan, with whom he is typically noticed on the kingdom’s annual flagship Future Investment Initiative.
In Abu Dhabi, Misra works carefully with the internal circle of Sheikh Tahnoon, who’s on the helm of a $1.5 trillion empire. His key contacts within the UAE capital embrace Syed Basar Shueb, chief government officer of the $246 billion International Holding Co; Sofia Lasky, a outstanding government who sits on the boards of a number of native firms; and Peng Xiao, CEO of G42 — a agency that is on the coronary heart of Sheikh Tahnoon’s push into AI.
At his new fund, Misra is eyeing returns of 20%, acknowledging the times of 30% returns on giant swimming pools of capital could also be over. He believes credit score has not less than one other 12 months to play out and will look to foray into personal fairness after that, pledging to take fewer dangers this time round. That’s a break from the previous when the Vision Fund injected billions into a variety of startups at hovering valuations and shook up the enterprise capital business.
OneIM is low key by these requirements. An internet site arrange just lately has few particulars on operations or investments. Misra plans to maintain it that manner, whereas his handpicked crew of 25 funding professionals — led by trusted long-time lieutenants Munish Varma and Yanni Pipiliseach of whom labored with him at Deutsche Bank and Vision Fund — scour for alternatives primarily within the US and Europe.
Last 12 months, it supplied loans to WeWork, based on securities filings by the now-bankrupt workplace firm. It’s additionally supported Apollo Global Management Inc.’s leveraged buyout of Wagamama proprietor The Restaurant Group Plc, Bloomberg News reported this month.
In one other departure from what he described as a chaotic method at his earlier job, OneIM has invested solely $1 billion of the $7 billion it has raised to this point, Misra mentioned. Once alliances, platforms, and an even bigger crew are in place, deploying capital quicker goes to be simple, he mentioned. “You cannot pressure me to deploy quicker except odds are in my favor.”
When requested about his profession trajectory and what the longer term could maintain, Misra quotes from an astrologer that his household has consulted for many years.
“It will go upwards and upwards,” he says with a smile.