Great essay Brad. My father and his contemporaries were visiting Dubai in the 20th century as part of the shipping industry from the 60s to the 90s some of their war stories are James Bond scenes.
The investment strategy particular in agriculture which you wrote about that is under reported especially the big one the acquisition of the Louis Dreyfus stake is vertical integration. Farm to table which is incredible for a water stressed state. The majority shareholder of LD iirc is a widow of one of the family descendants who managed to obtain control in a family power struggle. Her selling a large stake to ADQ indicates she's not worried over management control. Few could have pulled that deal off. In the past it was Jaoanese Kiretsu acting as silent partners.
You wrote quite in detail about their African investmebts. What i was surprised to learn is the UAE is now the biggest investor in Africa. Given how much is written about PRC investments in Africa UAE investment flies under the radar.
The only thing the essay missed is Emirates Airlines. DBX airport has become a super connector for Europe and the subcontinent which is impressive. European Travellers to Asia transit through DBX whilst subcontinental travelers to Europe and North America transit through DBX too. Anyone wishing to fly to destinations in Africa will probably need to fly emirates via DBX.
The only quibble is UAE more of a slavery society in comparison to other city states or London. Otherwise great read, learned quite a bit from it.
I referenced Emirates Airlines in passing but I nearly killed myself trying to write this and barely scraped the surface!
The next guy who reads this and goes further will do the world a great favor, I tried my best to do my bit.
Regarding Louis Dreyfrus, yes the widow who inherited it mismanaged the company and it had a lot of debt, that is how they got a 45% minority share, this article was so damn long already though, explaining that just did fall by the wayside.
Having previously spent a great deal of time with people from Saudi Arabia I often imagined how strange it must be to grow up in a modern petrostate when your grandparents grew up in tents in the desert. Really wish I had visited when I had more contacts in the region.
I still have some amount of contact with Munthir, in that he has texted me happy holiday type things occasionally and I think we're friends on facebook which he doesn't really use, but he is in Oman, which as I said in a footnote, is the one of these countries I would prefer to visit. If I happen to ever go to Oman I will definitely try to get in contact with him lol. Last I heard he was managing a ceramics factory, so me doing his business classes must have not hurt his prospects that much 🤣
But yeah it really is crazy. On the other hand, my grandma grew up on a little homestead in extreme poverty, so I mean I guess it's not that different besides that homesteads are our cultural heritage whereas tents in the desert are not. I actually had that as "mud huts" instead of "oasis villages" in that background title but realized those oases are those traditional desert buildings whatever you would call them that are not like legit mudhuts, they're more like what we would call Pueblos.
Also apparently the UAE is the world's top exporter of limestone, this just didn't come up in the article because it's actually a local resource and them quarrying limestone which happens to be there has nothing to do with this broader story of their expansion lol [it's still not that big of a part of their economy, they export about .7% as much by value as gold, I don't think a lot of people use limestone unless it is a locally available material, theirs just happens to be very high quality]
Anyway, glad it is not just me who thinks this is profound.
Great essay Brad. My father and his contemporaries were visiting Dubai in the 20th century as part of the shipping industry from the 60s to the 90s some of their war stories are James Bond scenes.
The investment strategy particular in agriculture which you wrote about that is under reported especially the big one the acquisition of the Louis Dreyfus stake is vertical integration. Farm to table which is incredible for a water stressed state. The majority shareholder of LD iirc is a widow of one of the family descendants who managed to obtain control in a family power struggle. Her selling a large stake to ADQ indicates she's not worried over management control. Few could have pulled that deal off. In the past it was Jaoanese Kiretsu acting as silent partners.
You wrote quite in detail about their African investmebts. What i was surprised to learn is the UAE is now the biggest investor in Africa. Given how much is written about PRC investments in Africa UAE investment flies under the radar.
The only thing the essay missed is Emirates Airlines. DBX airport has become a super connector for Europe and the subcontinent which is impressive. European Travellers to Asia transit through DBX whilst subcontinental travelers to Europe and North America transit through DBX too. Anyone wishing to fly to destinations in Africa will probably need to fly emirates via DBX.
The only quibble is UAE more of a slavery society in comparison to other city states or London. Otherwise great read, learned quite a bit from it.
https://aeon.co/essays/are-the-persian-gulf-city-states-slave-societies
I referenced Emirates Airlines in passing but I nearly killed myself trying to write this and barely scraped the surface!
The next guy who reads this and goes further will do the world a great favor, I tried my best to do my bit.
Regarding Louis Dreyfrus, yes the widow who inherited it mismanaged the company and it had a lot of debt, that is how they got a 45% minority share, this article was so damn long already though, explaining that just did fall by the wayside.
Having previously spent a great deal of time with people from Saudi Arabia I often imagined how strange it must be to grow up in a modern petrostate when your grandparents grew up in tents in the desert. Really wish I had visited when I had more contacts in the region.
I still have some amount of contact with Munthir, in that he has texted me happy holiday type things occasionally and I think we're friends on facebook which he doesn't really use, but he is in Oman, which as I said in a footnote, is the one of these countries I would prefer to visit. If I happen to ever go to Oman I will definitely try to get in contact with him lol. Last I heard he was managing a ceramics factory, so me doing his business classes must have not hurt his prospects that much 🤣
But yeah it really is crazy. On the other hand, my grandma grew up on a little homestead in extreme poverty, so I mean I guess it's not that different besides that homesteads are our cultural heritage whereas tents in the desert are not. I actually had that as "mud huts" instead of "oasis villages" in that background title but realized those oases are those traditional desert buildings whatever you would call them that are not like legit mudhuts, they're more like what we would call Pueblos.
Also apparently the UAE is the world's top exporter of limestone, this just didn't come up in the article because it's actually a local resource and them quarrying limestone which happens to be there has nothing to do with this broader story of their expansion lol [it's still not that big of a part of their economy, they export about .7% as much by value as gold, I don't think a lot of people use limestone unless it is a locally available material, theirs just happens to be very high quality]
Anyway, glad it is not just me who thinks this is profound.