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A parade of investors and entrepreneurs, from WeWork founder Adam Neuman and former White House adviser Jared Kushner to LIV Golf Commissioner Greg Norman, took to the stage in Miami Beach, Fla., last week. He talked about why Saudi Arabia is important to his future business plans. .
Mr. Neumann, who is currently launching a residential real estate business called Flow after securing $350 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, attended the Future Investment Initiative’s Global Priorities Summit on Friday. He said he believes the Desert Kingdom is an ideal environment to reinvent methods. People live and work.
“What’s happening in Saudi Arabia now is that they’re dreaming of cities,” said the 43-year-old Israeli who popularized the concept of shared office space, along with investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. He said this in an on-stage conversation with. “You’re starting from scratch. It’s incredible because you can apply the right technology and the right energy from day one.”
Mr. Neumann, who also spoke about the difficult personal lessons he learned after being fired as WeWork’s CEO in 2019, said that he will be attending the FII-sponsored event, a spin-off of the group’s annual economic conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was one of the most anticipated speakers at the two-day conference. It is colloquially known as “Davos of the Desert”. Both are supported by the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. The fund is a $650 billion sovereign wealth fund with investments ranging from crypto startups and game studios to the emerging LIV Golf League.
Yasir al-Rumayan, PIF president and chairman of state oil company Saudi Aramco, said at the beginning of Thursday’s proceedings that he expected PIF’s assets to grow to $1 trillion by 2025 and between $2 trillion and $3 trillion by 2030. He said that Aramco’s 2022 net profit of $161 billion was the highest among publicly traded companies in the world.Al Rumayyan said the company is committed to mitigating climate change, but the transition to sustainable energy sources will be gradual. said that it was necessary to do so.
“Some governments around the world bullied oil and gas companies,” Al Rumayyan said. “The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will take time.”
The Miami conference was held amid efforts by Americans and Saudi Arabia to ease tensions between the two countries, which have been close allies for more than 70 years.
Kushner, founder of Affinity Equity Partners, which reportedly received $2 billion in investment from PIF, said he sees big opportunities in both the Saudi kingdom and the Florida city where he moved after leaving the White House.
“Saudi Arabia and Miami are places that are developing, places that are not stuck in the past, places that are open-minded and [where] People are coming together,” he said.
Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who opened the conference with Al Rumayyan, learned about the Saudi opportunity while attending a three-day Riyadh conference in October that drew more than 6,000 participants. He said he had agreed to host a priority meeting. Summit in his city. Notable attendees included investors such as Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management, Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, Josh Harris of 26North, and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital. It was included.
Kushner reflected on the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements in 2020 that he led to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, and said that political changes in the region could lead to broader commercial He said he was happy to see it lead to opportunities.
“The practical implications at this point are huge,” he said. “There’s business happening in the Middle East that wouldn’t have happened… Defense deals are happening, but that’s not going to happen… The biggest thing for me is actually two things. First, the Arab I think people are finally starting to say good things about Muslims and Jews, and there’s a connection between people, and that’s finally pushing back against the opposition. It’s difficult.”
This interfaith element was also addressed by best-selling author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who closed the final session of Friday’s conference by discussing this week’s confluence of Ramadan, Passover, and Easter. . He said Islam, Judaism and Christianity have provided “universal principles that have guided human behavior and helped us overcome wars and pandemics… recessions and depressions.”
Before talking about his business and political ventures, Kushner began his speech by condemning the indictment of former President Donald Trump that was released the night before. new york timesMeanwhile, it published an article on Thursday revealing investments by the UAE and Qatar in both Affinity and Liberty Strategic Capital, a fund founded by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who also spoke at the conference.
In Thursday’s appearance, Mnuchin mainly talked about the U.S. economy and the failure of Silicon Valley banks, which were bailed out and sold by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
“I think this was a complete failure by management and a failure by the regulators,” Mnuchin said. “We should have known this a long time ago and it should never have happened.”
The conference also heard from Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of Credit Suisse, who left the Zurich-based financial firm three years before it collapsed last month. Thiam, who is currently executive chairman of Freedom Acquisition Corporation, said he views the global economy as fundamentally strong and remains confident in the strength of the banking industry.
“This is actually a liquidity crisis, which generally leads to the failure of institutions rather than capital,” Thiam said during a panel discussion. “So, overall, it’s very comfortable.”
Amid the backlash against cryptocurrencies following the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried, industry leader Michael Novogratz says traders are “reenergized” and the price of Bitcoin and its peers is rising. He said he appears to be recovering.
“We’re seeing a lot of activity overseas, and at home the government is really trying to disrupt the industry,” Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, said during a panel discussion. “Cryptocurrency started as a revolution of little people. They didn’t trust the government,” he says. “You are picking on a cryptocurrency community that loves this technology and believes in it with almost religious fervor.”
Also speaking at the conference was Greg Norman, CEO and commissioner of the LIV Golf Tournament, which is backed by a Saudi Arabian investment fund and is being sued by the incumbent PGA Tour for poaching star players. Norman dismissed his questions about the viability of the new golf tournament, saying he was confident LIV would survive its battle with the PGA.
“Monopolists don’t like to be taken off their pedestals,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere.”
In his conversation with Neumann, Horowitz said that during his visit to Riyadh last year, he received a warm welcome and prompt decision-making from Al Rumayan and Saudi Ambassador to Washington Reema bint Bandar Al Saud. Horowitz said he is excited.
“Within a week, we had six very interesting meetings scheduled,” Horowitz said, adding that both partners plan to bring executives from venture capital portfolio companies to Saudi Arabia this month. “That’s what startups are like,” he said.
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