Nabil Sawabini founded MENA Capital in September 2004 and today is the chairman and chief executive officer of the private equity and property company. Before founding MENA Capital, Sawabini was with JP Morgan, where he spent 25 years in high-ranking positions in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Executive recently sat down with Sawabini to get an insider’s view of the private equity and real estate markets in Lebanon and the region. E We are still in the midst of an economic downturn and the effects on the regional private equity markets have been significant, leaving funds and investors in a wait-and-see mode. What has your strategy been since October 2008 when we started to see the market nosedive? The focus we have had in the last few years has been primarily on real estate for a very simple reason: We felt that there is more potential and
