Dubai’s Shuaa bolsters investment bank with Credit Suisse hires

Dubai’s Shuaa bolsters investment bank with Credit Suisse hires

Dubai: Dubai-based Shuaa Capital is looking to rebuild its investment banking franchise by bringing in former Credit Suisse bankers amid increasing deal activity in the Middle East. Shuaa in May appointed Wafik Ben Mansour, a Credit Suisse managing director who spent 15 years at the Swiss lender, as head of its investment bank. The firm has now also hired another Credit Suisse veteran, Rustam Rizvanov, Shuaa’s CEO Fawad Tariq Khan said in an interview. With the hires, the firm is emerging as one of several banks benefiting from the Swiss bank’s takeover by UBS Group earlier this year. “From our perspective, we saw it as an opportunity to get good talent and, secondly, potentially get a team,” Khan said. “We benefit from the fact that international investment banks have been cutting back.” Shuaa is looking to add two to three more people and is considering more candidates from Credit Suisse as well as investment professionals from asset managers including Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Khan said. Its latest round of hiring comes amid a flurry of capital markets activity in the Middle East. Buoyed by high oil prices, state-backed regional entities have gone on an acquisition spree, and there’s been