Private banking, investment banking and private equity.

With high oil prices pumping fairy-tale-like sums of money into the coffers of the oil producers, the private equity wave is sweeping the region, with more and more capital looking for interesting projects to finance. GDP growth in non-oil producing states is increasingly buoyed by oil money from abroad, most visible in the various “mega-projects” springing up not just in Dubai, Doha, or Manama anymore but now also in Damascus, Amman, and Cairo. In the Gulf, PE funds are now replacing traditional commercial banks as big investment houses and the region is flush with money. The question, however, is: How does this play out in Lebanon? The financial experts interviewed by Executive say that the domestic political situation during the past decade forced Lebanon to move on a separate path, different from the rest of the region. According to Khaled Zeidan, at Banque de la Méditerranée, “Investment banking, as a