Abu Dhabi's state-owned investment fund Mubadala did not receive any new cash from the government in 2015 for the first time in at least eight years, its financial statement accompanying a 12.4 percent rise in profit showed on Thursday. In a further sign of dwindling funds available to oil rich nations in the Gulf, the Abu Dhabi government is instead in the process of converting a previous interest-free loan into equity.
The collapse in oil prices in the past year has brought to a halt substantial amounts of cash provided to sovereign investment funds to help support investments at home and globally. Mubadala is the primary vehicle charged with making investments which will help the development of the local economy and had 246.4 billion dirhams ($67.1 billion) of assets at the end of 2015, up marginally on the previous year.
Among the few state-controlled firms of Abu Dhabi to publish results, unlisted Mubadala has interests in areas including energy, aerospace, real estate and technology, with stakes in General Electric and private equity firm Carlyle among others. The statement showed that support pledged to Mubadala as of last year included no new cash for the first time since 2008, the earliest year for which records are available on its website. The so-called "additional shareholder contributions" was reduced to 123.2 billion dirhams ($33.54 billion). Mubadala has received instructions from its shareholder, the Abu Dhabi government, to convert interest-free loans worth 18.37 billion dirhams into equity, the fund said, indicating an amount equivalent to the emirate's cash infusion in 2014. The company is in the process of issuing share capital worth this amount, it added without elaborating or providing a timetable.
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