Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

  • Home
  • Your Survival
    • Special Report: FOOD SHORTAGE: Crazed Hoarding Is Not Preparing
    • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
    • Constitutional Carry
    • EMP Threat
    • Tucker Explains
    • Newport Gas Outage
    • Water
      • Emergency Water Storage
      • Let There Be Water
    • Get Your Gun and Your Training Now
    • Satellite Phones
    • Navy SEAL Survival Kit
  • Your Money
    • Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • Looking for a Better America
    • You Invest, They Win
    • Where to Keep Your Cash
    • Paris
    • How to Buy a Boat
    • Dead or Alive? The Future of Long-Term Investing
    • Is Vanguard too Big?
    • Cryptocosm and Life After Google
    • The Last Intelligence Report
    • The Truth Behind the S&P 500
    • RAGE Gauge
    • How Many “Retirees” Will Keep Working?
    • Your Retirement Life
    • You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
  • Weapons
    • Self Defense
    • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • About Me
    • Your Survival Guy: “Life on Main Street Hasn’t Been This Hard in a While”
    • Preparing for Times Like These
    • My Videos/Pics
    • Music
      • RIP Neil Peart: You Will Always Be Remembered as a “Modern-Day Warrior”
    • Your Survival Guy: Make Your Bed and The Hero Code
  • You
    • Our Cabin on Kodiak, Alaska
    • If You Are in Pain, this May Help. It Helped Me.
    • How to Save for a Grandchild
    • FIRE! Financial Independence, Retire Early
    • Compound Interest
    • Arithmetic of Portfolio Losses
    • Maximum Portfolio Withdrawal Rate
    • An Efficient Frontier
    • Retirement Compounders
    • Counterbalanced Total Returns
  • Survive & Thrive
    • January 2023: Stacking Wood and Compounding Money
    • December 2022: Your Survival Guy Prefers Bombardier’s Global Express 7500
    • November 2022: Arriving in Style at Le Bristol Hotel, Paris
    • October 2022: Sink Your Teeth into These Bond Yields
    • September 2022: Do You Have the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?
    • August 2022: “Watch This Boat off Our Stern,” My Dad Said “He’s Coming in HOT”
    • July 2022: MONEY TALKS: Your Survival Guy’s Best Service in Paris
    • June 2022: “I’ve Been with Richard Young for Over 30 Years Now”
    • May 2022: Survive “If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”
    • April 2022: Dream On! Fishing the Double Down in Key West
    • March 2022: Your Survival Guy Hears the Craziest Investing Stories
    • February 2022: Your Survival Guy’s 2022 Super States
    • January 2022: The Least Affordable Housing Market in the U.S.
    • December 2021: Listen Your Survival Guy is not “Mr. Peanut”
    • November 2021: Joe Biden is Weaponizing Your 401(k) Against You
    • October 2021: Time to Get Your Lazy Cash Off the Couch
    • September 2021: What’s Your Survival Guy Investing in Right Now?
    • August 2021: To Where Will You Flee?
    • July 2021: This Bubble’s Popped Baby
    • June 2021: Your Survival Guy’s Summer Job, Inflation & You
    • May 2021: You’re Telling Me Friends Ask You This Question
    • April 2021: Is There One Best Place in America for ‘Liberty Retirees?’
    • March 2021: America’s Growth Corridors
    • February 2021: Troops in D.C. & Your Authoritarian Virtual Panopticon
    • January 2021: Are You Ready for The Great Reset?
    • December 2020: Disaster Prep in Our Newport Bunker and Your Survival
    • November 2020: Election 2020 Edition: Stock Market is Predicting a Trump Win
    • October 2020: You Invest They Win, AGAIN
    • September 2020: Proud to be an American: Pro-Trump Parade Turns Rhode Island Red
    • August 2020: The Clock is Ticking: You Must Protect Your Family
    • July 2020: What Will Her Life Be Like Now?
    • June 2020: Your Survival Guy’s Home (and Money) Protection Plan
    • May 2020: Future Look at Covid-20, or the Next Deadly Virus
    • April 2020: Only Trump Saw the Risk in America’s Relationship with China
    • March 2020: Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • February 2020: Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
    • January 2020: Is Your Cash Safe? Probably not This Safe
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • Welcome

Beware Billionaires Selling Salvation: You Invest, They Win

July 7, 2021 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 22JAN16 – Arif M. Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive, The Abraaj Group, United Arab Emirates discuss with the other participants during the session ‘Emerging Markets Outlook’ at the Annual Meeting 2016 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2016. WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/swiss-image.ch/Photo Michael Buholzer License.

You know I have been warning you about the big business billionaires who sell ways to save the world, like ESG funds, while really they’re just charging you higher fees for a repackaged index fund. For them, it’s all about their EGO.

Now, The Wall Street Journal’s Simon Clark reports on another example of investors being sold the idea of saving the world, only to be bilked by another pretender. Clark writes:

“It’s a crucial moment in history. It’s an opportunity to immutably and absolutely change the course of innumerable lives.”

Arif Naqvi, a silver-haired man of soft, bearish charm, was giving the biggest speech of his life. Hundreds of business leaders were gathered at New York City’s Mandarin Oriental hotel to hear him speak on that Monday morning in September of 2017. This was his moment. The eyes of the global elite were on him and he knew he needed to make a big impression.

The U.S. press had published glowing articles about Mr. Naqvi, who socialized with billionaires, royalty and politicians. Bill Gates, Prince Charles and John Kerry were among those he interacted with for business or philanthropy. He was a member of influential boards at the United Nations and Interpol. He had signed Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, and had been touted as a potential future leader of Pakistan, where he was born.

He was one of the world’s leading “impact investors,” and his stated purpose was to do good and make profits—for his investors and for himself. Abraaj Group, his Dubai-based private-equity firm, managed almost $14 billion and owned stakes in a hundred companies in emerging markets. Abraaj appeared to be a moneymaking machine and was raising $6 billion from investors for a new fund.

It was no coincidence that world political leaders were meeting at the same time a short walk away at U.N. headquarters. Mr. Naqvi’s objective at the impact-investing conference, which he was sponsoring alongside Bank of America Corp. , was to convince his audience that he could solve humanity’s biggest problems—hunger, sickness, illiteracy, climate change and power shortages—better than the politicians assembled across town. Bank of America, which invested in Abraaj, declined to comment for this account.

“To do good does not necessarily mean to compromise returns,” Mr. Naqvi said, pacing back and forth upon the stage. “It is gratifying that we are having this event on morning one, day one and hour one of the U.N. General Assembly week.”

A revolution in finance was needed and he was going to lead it. He wasn’t just harnessing capitalism to make money for the rich but to end the suffering of the poor as well. The era of the impact investor had arrived, he said.

The crowd swelled with applause.

It was a masterly performance, but Mr. Naqvi’s sunny optimism on stage masked deep chaos at his firm. Legal filings in the U.S. and regulatory proceedings in Dubai have since shown the company’s finances were in a disastrous state.

Rafique Lakhani, an employee whose job was to manage Abraaj’s cash, had emailed Mr. Naqvi days before the speech to tell him there was no money left to pay for promised investments in hospitals in poor countries, which he asked to be delayed.

This account is based on interviews with Abraaj investors and former employees, as well as company emails and bank statements, a regulatory investigation into Abraaj in Dubai and legal filings in civil and criminal cases the U.S. government has brought against Mr. Naqvi and five of his most senior former colleagues. Mr. Lakhani, Abraaj’s former cash manager, is among the indicted executives. Former colleagues believe he is in Pakistan. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Naqvi, 60 years old, has maintained his innocence of the U.S. charges, which overlap significantly with the Dubai investigation, and he declined to comment for this article. He is currently out on bail and living in London. U.K. authorities have ordered his extradition to the U.S. to stand trial and he has applied to appeal their decision. One of his former colleagues, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood, has pleaded guilty in the U.S.

Behind the facade of operating a successful investment company capable of improving billions of lives, Mr. Naqvi was masterminding a global criminal conspiracy, according to U.S. prosecutors. Abraaj didn’t have any money left on the day of the 2017 conference because he had stolen it, according to the prosecutors, who allege that he took hundreds of millions of dollars and misused money from investors including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bank of America, public pension funds, and the U.S., U.K. and French governments. Abraaj improperly or fraudulently transferred more than $780 million to Mr. Naqvi and other parties for his benefit and he misappropriated more than $385 million of those funds, returning the balance to Abraaj, according to a legal filing from Abraaj’s liquidators.

Abraaj was secretly siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from its healthcare fund and other funds to pay for Mr. Naqvi’s billionaire lifestyle and expenses and salaries at the firm, according to the U.S. government’s case, the Dubai financial regulator’s investigation and company and investor documents.

Action Line: How many Arif Naqvis are out there? If someone promises you can have it all and save the world, you need to immediately be skeptical. If not, you invest, and they win.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profile

Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)

  • CATO: Global Freedom Is in Sharp Decline - January 27, 2023
  • TIME FOR A GONDOLA? Little Cottonwood Canyon Jammed with Traffic - January 27, 2023
  • Biden Administration Destroying Retiree Fiduciary Protections - January 27, 2023
  • 4 Life Changing Words for Your Survival Guy: “You Should Try This” - January 26, 2023
  • Anti-Carbon Crusaders in Davos Talk ESG and OPM - January 25, 2023

If you enjoyed this post, email it to a friend:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

Money 101

Trending

  • Invest with Peace of Mind and Comfort
  • LOSING POWER: Your Survival Guy's Nightmare Scenario
  • The Importance of a Balanced Portfolio
  • Stocks Go Up and Down: Get Paid Along the Way
  • The World Economic Forum's Record of Destruction
  • Don’t Worry, I Won’t Tell Them Our Secret
  • Don't Let Your Lazy Cash Eat all Your Food
  • WATER STORAGE: California's Missed Opportunity
  • Hey, Where'd All the Moving Vans Go?
  • Your Survival Guy's 2022 Super States

Must Reads

  • On the Phone with Mr. Billionaire
  • How to Avoid Going Back to Work after Retirement
  • Some Lessons You Just Can’t Get from a Textbook
  • BIDEN-FLATION: Here’s Why Prices Are Up At Your Favorite Restaurant
  • Your Survival Guy’s Fishing Stories: From Key West to Newport
  • Why You Can’t Afford to Miss the Boat
  • GET PAID: How To Invest in Biden’s Inflationary Market
  • Here’s Why You Need a 15-Year Retirement Investment Plan
  • Survival: Lost in the Woods Bending the Map
  • This State Leads America in Gun Ownership
Only if You’re Serious
Crazed Hoarding Is not Preparing
How to Save Rainwater Effectively
Your Survival Guy in Paris
Your Survival Guy's Fishing Stories
Financial Independence, Retire Early
Money 101
Pandemic Creates Virtual Panopticon
Emergency Water Storage
Find Freedom in America
Second Amendment
How Can You Save Money for Your Grandchild
Great Reset
See Who's Missing the Boat
Richard  Young Reports
How You Can Save Money for Your Grandchild
Why Fidelity is Number One
The Best States for Survival
You Invest, They Win
Escape the City
Why Vanguard is Too Big for YOU
Island Life

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.