The brand excels as a leading alternative investment firm with over 35 years of specialised experience, leveraging deep sector knowledge and local insights to create diversified opportunities across Latin America and beyond
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Michael Majdalany, Head of Middle East, Patria
Patria is a leading alternative investment firm with over 35 years of specialised experience in key resilient sectors. Over the years, the firm has navigated dynamic markets with its roots in Brazil and a focus on the Latin American markets.
“Our recipe for success combines deep sector expertise with on-the-ground local knowledge to create highly diversified and tailored investment opportunities for our clients. We specialise in agribusiness, power and energy, healthcare, logistics and transportation and digital and tech services where we are able to provide clients with unparalleled insight across market cycles. It is a time-proven approach with consistent and attractive returns whilst building a positive legacy for the communities in which we operate,” explains Michael Majdalany, Head of Middle East, Patria.
The first Middle Eastern relationship that Patria began was with a Sovereign Wealth Fund, that invested in its Private Equity Fund back in 1997. As more of the regional Sovereign Wealth and Pension Funds entrusted Patria with the management of their Latin American investment exposure, the region grew in importance for them. This led to Patria opening their local office in the UAE in January 2016, in the iconic Gate Building, DIFC, Dubai.
“From here we cover the entire Middle East and a couple of Central Asian countries, with a focus on the GCC. It’s key for us to have a local presence that understands the needs of the market and investors. Our model is to always have local presence and connections,” says Majdalany.
The local presence helps them to provide their expertise as a sector specialist, who can craft different investment opportunities for each region and client’s needs. This has been and is the Patria way of achieving attractive results in a long-term cycle.
As the leading alternative asset manager in Latin America, Patria has successfully invested Middle Eastern capital into Private Equity, Infrastructure, Credit, Growth, VC and Real Estate. According to Majdalany, their current Assets Under Management stand at around $42bn. He says: “We have also formed partnerships with large stakeholders in the region, for example with the Saudi PIF, where we established a special partnership directed towards investment in the transportation infrastructure of Brazil. Specifically, we have teamed up to jointly bid in the current round of Government auctions for Toll Road concessions. We secured our first win recently, (this was in 30 years) $1.2 billion, 473km brownfield toll road concession in the State of Parana, Brazil. But beyond Latin America, Patria also offers tailored solutions through our Global Private Markets platform, into European and Global mid-market, secondary and co-investment.”
Going forward, Patria sees tremendous opportunity in the Middle Eastern markets, not just as a source of capital for their funds, but as exciting growth markets for their Portfolio Companies.
“We are also exploring the off-take of raw materials, such as bitumen for our Toll Road platform, or fertilizers for our Agricultural-Input Distribution company. The prospect for regional growth is compelling as evidenced by our recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Saudi Ministry of Investments where we have agreed to explore investment opportunities in our respective markets,” says Majdalany.