Some Middle East sovereign wealth funds still have 30% of their hiring to do for this year

The Middle East’s largest sovereign wealth fund (SWF), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), may have lost its top spot to Norway’s state investment vehicle, but funds in the region still growing – and hiring.

Norway’s Government Pension Fund is now the largest SWF in the world, according to the latest rankings from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, knocking ADIA from its long-held number one position.  However, the total assets of all the SWFs in the Middle East have increased by $28.7bn since March, to $811.7bn.

What’s more, the ongoing recruitment drives have yet to show any signs of subsiding among Middle Eastern entities. Most firms have headcount targets based on the calendar year, according to recruiters working with sovereign wealth funds in the region, and some firms are scrambling to fill these before the end of 2012.

“We’re seeing ongoing demand from large government investment entities in the Middle East, which still have headcount allocations to fill for 2012,” says James Wakefield, director of headhunters Cobalt Abu Dhabi. “In some cases there is as much as 30% of 2012 headcount still to be filled, and this is across the board.”

For the larger institutions, which increase their headcount by at least 100 people a year, this means a minimum of 30 hires remaining, whereas it’s more likely to be one or two recruits left at the smaller funds.

The likes of ADIA, the Qatar Investment Authority and SAMA Foreign Holdings have all been hiring throughout 2012 and recruiters tells us that opportunities are still emerging as the firms look to fill headcount allocation before the end of this year.

ADIA, in particular, is still in the midst of increasing headcount by 45 within its private equities division, having hired Colm Lanigan as head of principal investments and Mark Kerstead as chief financial officer with the private equity arm last month.

Recruiters also suggest that government entities are looking to Big Four accounting firms for auditors as they move towards “best practice” in the accounting and reporting space.

Since 2011, ADIA’s assets have largely remained unchanged, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s rankings, while other large Middle Eastern SWFs have grown.

SAMA Foreign Holdings in Saudi, for instance, has increased from $439.1bn last year to $532.8bn in the past quarter, the Kuwait Investment Authority has also swelled from $202.8bn last year to $296bn in the latest rankings and the Qatar Investment Authority has increased its AUM from $85bn last year to $115bn in 2012.