eFinancialCareers

Want to work in private equity? The Middle East may be the place to go.

By all accounts, the Middle East private equity industry is on a roll. Jobs are being created in the process.

“Private equity is a particularly active area of recruitment,” says Metin Mitchell director for the Middle East at Korn/Ferry International. “Funds in Dubai are trying to hire partners and people who can deal with businesses they’ve acquired.”

Guy Townsend, managing director of UK-based search firm Walker Hamill, is currently advertising for junior private equity staff to work in Dubai and Kuwait. “Private equity is a hot topic in the Middle East right now,” he says. “It’s clearly a growth area.”

Walkers a law firm based in the Cayman Islands, recently forecast that private equity activity in the Middle East will triple in the next five years. And earlier this week Reuters reported that funds under management in the region now stand at more than $5bn, up 55% on last year.

If you land a private equity job in Dubai or Bahrain it won’t be with the big U.S. funds that dominate the industry globally. The likes of Apax Partners, Carlyle Group, Blackstone and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. do not have offices in the region.

Instead, activity is dominated by local firms like Abraaj Capital, which recently entered into a joint venture with Deutsche Bank and Ithmaar Bank to raise a $2 billion Islamic private equity fund to invest in infrastructure in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Mitchell says locally-based funds can balk at the cost of overseas talent. “Many local firms are having difficulties getting their heads around buying out high levels of carried interest,” he says. “It comes as a real shock when they find that someone’s carry is worth several million.”

However, he says local funds are willing to pay up for members of the international Arab community with strong technical expertise in the private equity sector: “Pay is increasingly in line with the West.”