The Gate at DIFC
Lazard Asset Management (LAM) said it would expand its Middle East operations by hiring the former regional asset management team of ING Group NV, which resigned from the Dutch firm in Dubai earlier this week.
A subsidiary of U.S.-based Lazard, LAM will focus on equities in the Middle East and North Africa and frontier markets with the Dubai-based team of six.
Farah Foustok will be managing director and senior executive officer at LAM’s Dubai office, while Fadi Al Said will be director and portfolio manager, Lazard said in a statement.
The team resigned en masse on Monday from ING Investments Middle East, and the Dutch company, still struggling to pay back the state after a 2008 bailout, then said it was shutting its regional asset management operations.
Lazard has $176 billion in global assets under management, with operations ranging from the United States to Europe to Australia. The firm has been managing assets in the Middle East since 1992, with an office in Bahrain for the last six years.-Reuters
