The Middle East Becomes the World’s ATM

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By Eliot Brown and Rory Jones

(The Wall Street Journal) — Five years ago, Saudi officials watched a wave of American finance executives pull out of a free investment confab in Riyadh after the murder of a dis-sident journalist made the kingdom a toxic place to do business.

This year, the conference, nicknamed “Davos in the Desert,” is expecting so much demand it is charging executives $15,000 a person.

Middle East monarchies eager for global influence are having a moment on the world’s fi-nancial stage. They are flush with cash from an energy boom at the very time traditional Western financiers — hampered by rising interest rates — have retreated from deal mak-ing and private investing.

The region’s sovereign-wealth funds have become the en vogue ATM for private equity, venture capital and real-estate funds struggling to raise money elsewhere.