The Middle East is a well-established routine milk run for international managers of funds and sophisticated financial vehicles. Investable wealth and a regional community of high net worth individuals made for attractions that representatives of international investment houses would eagerly compete for. Of course, gallant Arab investors have for many years been welcomed also as holders of corporate stakes, be it as buyers into European car makers and chemicals manufacturers in the 1970s, or as rescuers of ventures in distress, such as Paris Disney or Citigroup in the 1990s. In this sense, new international acquisitions by state-backed Arab entities and sovereign wealth funds — one of the most recent being the takeover of 51.4% of New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management by Dubai International Capital — continue a successful tradition. Stock markets in the Gulf region and North Africa did not appear to be fully transparent and, until a few years
