If there is one thing everyone in the regional private equity (PE) game agrees on, it’s that the party is officially over, albeit after a long and fruitful period of money making. Despite the economic downturn and the immaturity of PE in the region, regional PE firms managed to raise a total of more than $6.4 billion in 2008, according to research conducted by Zawya Private Equity Monitor (ZPEM) and the Gulf Venture Capital Association (GVCA). When one considers that in 2005 PE firms raised a total of $2.9 billion, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the region over the past three years had registered at 30 percent, according to the GVCA. Ergo it’s no surprise that, until around October of 2008, the region was being heralded by many in the global PE industry as the next global PE hub. The financial bulldozer Inevitably, the financial disaster that emanated
