Abu Dhabi’s Trillion Dollar Man

Attendees at a conference in Abu Dhabi’s international financial free zone earlier this year described the emirate as the world’s capital capital, perhaps an apt description for a city whose sovereign wealth funds manage $1.5 trillion in assets. Three-quarters of that is controlled by one man, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

In addition to two wealth funds—one of which is among the top three by assets globally—Sheikh Tahnoon helms the region’s most important private investment firm, the country’s largest lender and its biggest listed corporate. That’s an unusual amount of financial firepower even in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.