Khaldoon Al Mubarak

a degree in economics and finance. Now he's back in the UAE, overseeing a sovereign wealth fund with more than two hundred fifty billion dollars in assets and a goal to find new investment opportunities in a lower oil world. Al Mubarak recently sat down with Carlisle Group co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubinstein's Bloomberg television program Peer to Peer Conversations. Let's talk about something that you're

very passionately interested in, which is football. You led a group that bought a team in the Premier League in England called Manchester City, which just won the Premier League. It was a great journey. You know, football is a is a passion of mine. I enjoy football, so doing that job was an absolute, absolute joy. So ten years ago we started this journey. UM. Manchester City was modest club back then in terms of their standing within the

Premier League. UM. They had revenues of about eighty million dollars. Ten years on we've pushed the revenue to almost five million. The group is very successful financially economically, but more importantly, when you're in the business of sports, you have to be successful on the pitch. And over the last seven years, UM, because it took us three years to build the capability and the club to be competitive, over the last seven years, Manchester City has been the most successful club in the

Premier League. We've won the Premier League three times in those seven years. So do you go into the locker room and give them kind of win one for the Gipper kind of speeches or how do you inspire the troops? No? I inspire the troops by making sure we have the right organization in place. I mean, that's what I think I'm good at. Getting the right ecosystem to for success on the pitch, getting the right players. That's really what

men wins in sports. It's that complete package. When they're practicing. Do you ever go down in the field and say, let me kick a couple of balls you know, I don't in order not to embarrass myself. What other teams do you have around the world. So we started with Manchester and then we came up with this idea of football is a global sport and it's a sport that's growing everywhere. How about we create a brand you know, are scouting the system, are our management systems, and use

these synergies to be successful in multiple jurisdictions. Never been done before. It was a thesis. We didn't know who

was going to work or not. But over the last uh you know, six to eight years, we've built a group called the City Football Group that owns UH controlling stakes or management stakes in clubs all around the world, and we're seeing the benefits of that by essentially having a much better proposition for sponsors who you know, want access to uh not just one market, but global market and want to have want to have that local presence through the football network that we have in these clubs.

We're looking now at India, we're looking at China, which is kind of a reflection of you know, everything else that I'm doing. If you look at our portfolio and Mobada, it falls a very similar path as a global UH platform, our presences and all these markets and and that's how we've grown over the last fifteen sixteen years. Let me just ask you about the country that you're from. I should disclose that you and I have done investments together. You've invested in my firm, so we I've got to

know you over quite a period of time. And um I wanted to ask you about Abu Dhabi, So let me give you a quick history lesson. The UA is a federation United Arab United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven emirates, seven states. I will let be being the largest, Dubai being one of the most famous. The federation was formed the nine The father of the nation is His Highness cherzad Uh. He passed away several years ago, but he was the father that he established the federation.

We have a population of about ten million overall. We have a wealth of resources, particularly in the oil and gas field. That's been the foundation of the economic development. The oil and the gas is not going to be here for the next thousand years. It's finite and we have to prepare ourselves for the future. The leadership of this country has focused on maximizing the benefits and the returns from this resource, but at the same time build

a diversification strategy, preparing ourselves for the future. And that's what you haven't in the UA today. Your economy now is dependent on oil? Is it fifty of your economy? So many years ago oil represented about seventy to of the GDP of the country. We've been able to move the economy where that concentration is now less than now. We're still a long way away, and I think the focus now is to continue to push that number down

as much as possible. Why do you think to buy which is not as wealthy as a would abby is

better known in some parts of the world. We have a radius around us of countries like India, countries like Egypt, countries with an immense history, and we were new into this market and we don't have a taj Mahal, and we don't have the pyramids, but we've What we've been able to do in Dubai particularly has been able to do was build a tourism infrastructure in terms of hotels, shopping, restaurants, entertainment, taking advantage of what we have, which is the sea

and the desert, and by doing so, we've been able to build a an influx of tourists that supersedes Egypt and India combined. Well, let's talk about how you got there where you are. You grew up in Aberdabi? Is that right now you're not a member of the royal family. So right now, to be a member of the royal family, that means you're part of the family that helped to found the country. And the royal family now in Abu Dhabi has hundreds of members of comp hundreds of members. Okay,

so you're not a member of the royal family. My grandfather was essentially the first chief justice uh in the UI when the federation was established and uh and my father was an ambassador. So I come from you know, a family that you know has justice, has diplomacy. Uh. And I was, you know, after my father passed away. I was brought up by my grandfather. So I at at a young age and your father passed away because of something that was tragic. Yes, he was assassinated in

France where he while he was he was ambassable. He was supposed in from how old were you? I was six years old. So you are now living in Abu Dhabi when this occurs you later go to college in the United States. Had Tops in Medford, And how did you happen to pick Tops? First of all, I didn't even know where Toughs was. I had never been to Boston. I think I had been to the United States once. I'm yeah. Summer I graduated, I went West Coast and that was the first time I actually go to the

West Coast. It's only then that I realized that I was deeply tricked by my friends and colleagues who convinced me to go to Boston. I love Boston, but the weather, you know from from a kid coming out of Abu Dhabi, where temperatures in the summer are north of a hundred degrees to go end up in Boston, that was a tough,

tough transition for me. And I didn't know California. And when I went to California after I graduated, I'm like, I should have started in California when you've got the talks to people say where is Abu Dhabi your student friends? So I dealt with two things. Number One, nobody had any idea about Abu Dhabi the Uae. Second is the pronunciation of my name. I have a very difficult name, It's Kaldon and is the pronounce pronunciation of this letter in English is challenged by most of my friends in

the United States. So I struggled with my name because people couldn't pronounce. So I became known not as Caldon, which is my name, but Caldon. Caldon is my let's say, my American name, so Caldoun, but you actually pronounced it call don. You can do that in Yiddish, but not so much in Yes. I found that also with my Yiddish friends. You come back after college and you looking for a job, and what did you do right after college?

Back then? You come out of college, you go back to Abu Dhabi and uh, you're you know, a U S graduate, and you're gonna have really essentially two options. Either you're gonna work in oil and gas or you're gonna work in the investment field. So I interviewed with both. I had an offer from both um, and I decided to to start at the Nationalale Company, okay Um. I worked there for for a couple of years, and I spent a lot of time in Abu Dhabi, but also

spent a lot of time in Japan. Are not many people know that, but is one of the largest producers of crude oil in the world and our largest market is Japan. That was very very interesting for me and I learned a lot from that experience. From there on, I moved into the investment world. I started at a pipeline project, was the first um gas project that connects three countries in them in the Middle East UH and it needed a company to own it, so the government

established a company and that company was Mubadala. So while I started with that project and evolved over the last twenty years to what it is today. So you were asked to to run m Bottla and Mubottla today it has assets of about two hundred and twenty billion dollars twenty billion dollars, so you have grown it from a relatively modest company. Over the last three years, we've been,

you know, evolving and expanding in different directions. And maybe four years ago I have told you less than two percent of our portfolio was in China, India and South America. We live, we had no presence in these countries. New exposure. Over the last three years we've been actively investing and UH President in China actively investing in President in India

actively President President investing in South America. We've been opening offices around many places around the world where our operations have reached scale. The bottle is owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi, correct, So who do you report to? So? I have a board of directors. The Board of Directors UH is chaired by His Highness Shamed bin zaid Ayan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. UH. So we have a strong board, very present board. The board meets on

a on a monthly basis. Now Saik Mohammed is the Crown Prince, but day to day he's in charge of running the operations of the government of Abu Dhabi. Is that fair to say? And it's fair to say you're very close to him. I've worked with him now for almost almost seven teen years, so I guess you're pretty close. So when he comes to let's say the United States and he meets with the President United States, UH, does he ask you to go with him? Sometimes? So have

you met with President Trump? So? I've had the the pleasure and honor to meet h with pre President Clinton, President Bush, uh, President Obama and now President Trump. So you do this in other parts of the world as well. You've got to be the prime ministers when the shake Bahama goes Yes, So how much of your time is running day to day the Mobotle operation and how much is dealing with government related issues. So the best thing about my job, David is I'm actually don't I don't

do anything. I have an organization that. One of the things I've tried to do throughout my career is always surround myself by talented, capable individuals. I've been lucky, I've hired well. I've built a very strong team in Mood. I have four top notch CEOs the report to me that essentially do everything. My ethos professionally has always been always try to hire the best, Always try to make sure that you have a strong stable of of talent around you. And that allows me to do so many things.

Now I have a significant commitment of my time working obviously for His Highness um So I spent a lot of time supporting His Highness and UH and traveling with him many places around the world. Would you ever go into the government full time? Or you're happy where you are? You know His Highness well, you've met him on many many occasions. He's a person that that I think working for him is is not a job. It's beyond that.

It's beyond that. You you you know, I what I if he asked me to do, to do anything, I would do it. So I'm loyal to to my country, I'm lawyer to my government. But above all, I think just working with someone like like Shaik Mohammed, I think as a as an absolute joy and I would do anything more. And one of the things that the country has decided to do is to not make it a tour center necessarily, but bring more things into the country. One of is you have a Cleveland clinic, yes that

you've opened that move Bottle has been involved with. Why didn't you decide to have a Cleveland clinic in Abu Dhabi?

So it's a it's a funny story. Um about Yeah, about ten years ago, I was I was with His Highness with Shaike Mohammed and uh it was it was a month of Ramadan and we had he was visiting a family and he had the breaking of the fast at this family's house and one of the members of that family had just come back from being treated in Cleveland for for a long time and they had just come back cut a long story short after the after the meal, Uh shaik, Momma likes to take a walk

always and and and many of our meetings are actually over long walks, which is, you know, a challenge when when you have to carry documents and and and particularly with our weather when it's very hot some days. It's believed me one of the hard parts of my job. So anyways, um, we took a walk and shake. Mohamed turned to me. It was night, It was maybe ten o'clock at night by at that point, and he said, this, gentleman just spent six months in Cleveland. We're one of

the wealthiest countries in the world. We have a small population. We've invested well in terms of infrastructure. Why don't we have a hospital of the quality of Cleveland Clinic here in the UE. It's not acceptable. My people deserve uh this quality healthcare. And and I, you know, I want you to handle this project. Why don't you go figure out how you convey how you can build a Cleveland Clinic hospital here so you have that now. And that's what we did. He said to me. Listen, you know,

I don't want any bureaucracy on this. You're gonna report directly to me on this project, and I want it done now, and I want to done it done immediately. Um. And it took me. It took us to cost as an organization. It took us about seven years to go convinced Cleveland Clinic of the logic of this, convinced them that we would actually commit to the to the quality of the care and to the to the management that this requires to deliver exactly what you have in Cleveland.

And abud w toocause seven years to build a state of the art hospital which we have today. Uh. And then that vision that he had, that dream he had, I think has been achieved. Let me ask him about another thing. You have opened up a museum that is the Louver. How is that working out? Well? First of all, I want to double check. Last time you came to my office and we met, you made a commitment that you visit it. Did you do it? I absolutely did, And I was astounded to see some of the works

of art there here. I am an American and I go to Abu Dhabi and I see Whistler's mother. So a great American painted this and actually it was in the Loup. It's part of their collection. And now some people say that the most expensive work of art ever purchased is in that museum. Yes, it will be in that museum soon. Okay, this is a Davincia. This is Davincia that was purchased a few months ago. I guess roughly llion dollars. So that should be a pretty good attraction.

You know, it's um it's a young country, it's a young nation. We didn't have a museum of this uh, of this magnitude in the u E. And I think this, this museum represents many things. Yes, it's it's beautiful. Yes, I think that the art collections is remarkable, But I think there's a bigger story in this. We are trying to push out of the u E a message of tolerance. If you go to that museum, you will see that

there is a curation. There's one particular Gelly that is for me incredible, in which you see the world religions really in one gallery and you see them next to each other. So there's there's a there's a there's a tora next to a Bible, next to a call from the same period, and you multiple literation of of different periods where you see the three books next to each other. Phenomenal. Now you can see that in a museum and in Germany or in or in the UK or here in

the United States. But for a museum in the u A to have that, I think for people that are that don't know the Middle East, I mean, that's a massive step, a massive step and a massive a massive message that you will understand, David, and many people that know them at least will understand the significance of that. Now, another thing that you've done is bringing the Formula one races. Now you've built an elaborate Formula one course and I've been to the races. There's that working out is working

out great. I mean the when when we say we need to attract, we've gone from from a country that was attracting a million tours a year to now over twenty million tours per year of a country that has a population of less than ten million. So over the years we've invested heavily in sporting activities and museums and hotels, etcetera. And that's made the UE such an attractive place for tourism.

But you know what's more important than all this safety and security in the neighborhood we're in, in the in the region we're in. To have a country like the UI attract that sort of a number of tourists, it can only be done by having a country that's safe and that's secure, and that people feel both safe and secure. In terms of the Middle East, Sheik Mohammed is very close to Shaikh Mohammed been Sman, who is the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia. How do they develop this close relationship.

You know, the Crown Princess Saudi Arabia, his Highness Hammad ben s is another incredible leader. I mean, what he's doing and what you're seeing in Saudi Araba right now is transformational. They share a view of the future. They share a vision of the future a better place, uh, not just for their people, but but for the region. And I think it's all these factors that make again, these two very special leaders very close together. President Trump

has pulled out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. Did you support the agreement? You know, didn' David. It's not a big secret that we in the UI have always had reservations over that that agreement from the beginning. We live in our region, we live in our neighborhood. We've been dealing with UM with Iran and the the the challenges that it on UH puts on the region and the

stability and security of the region. It's always been our position a concern over the UH what that agreement was able to achieve in terms of preventing it ON from building a military nuclear capability. How recently Saudi Arabia and u A, among others, have had a dispute with Cutter. Do you see any resolution and what is the basis of that dispute. The basis of the of this dispute is we live in all in a very challenging region.

UH national security has been at the forefront of of of challenges that all countries in our region face, and the GC see as a as a block that has always tried to maintain at least a vision of how we see the future and the stability and security of

that region. There has been a fundamental shift or disagreement in terms of how we see the future of this region and the direction that that has has decided to go through with its decisions in terms of both its politics, who it's decided to support, how it's UM really in our view not done what we had hoped it would do with regards to combating terrorism, combating the financing of terrorism, UH, and really sharing the vision that we have of what we feel all of us should have UH for the

stability of our region. That's really at the heart of this dispute. UM. These issues are are quite deep, but these issues obviously are have been going on now for months. I hope that ultimately this this matter gets resolved, and I hope at the end of the day we're all uh. We're all one family. UH. You know UH autories in Monaiti, Saudis,

Baharani Egyptian schooldays we are all one people. Some of the rhetoric coming out of the US government, has that been a concern to people in the Middlewest about Muslims or do you think it's political rhetoric and not something you worry about as much? No, I don't worry about that. No,

we don't worry about that. I think we we have such strong links with the United States, and we have such strong links with the people here in the United States, with the government, with the business community, with the academic community, the think tanks, across all facets of US society. So I think these links are deep. You know, we have to be able to distinguish between rhetoric and and and reality and and and and that reality on the ground is what we feel. You know, I've been watching d

C today. I'm i'm I'm meeting with politicians, I'm meeting with businessmen, I'm meeting with uh, you know, people from all facets, and I know I don't not feel it, and it doesn't worry. The final question I'd like to ask you about is, UH, is there anything that you'd rather be doing than you're doing that. I love what I do. I enjoy it both professionally and personally. But if there's one thing that I'd like to do more than what I'm doing right now, is spend more time

with my family. And you have two children. I have three kids. So I have a lovely wife and three children that unfortunately, because of all what I'm doing, I don't spend enough time with. And that's that's that's my one regret. Okay, well, at least maybe they'll be gonna watch this interview and they can see you at some point on TV. Maybe a lot of giving me some credit, right maybe, so well, thank you very much. For taking time to do this. Thank you, my pleasure,