Goldman hires to grow Middle East wealth business

The New York-based bank named Shrooq Abualif AlMuhaid as managing director and head of private wealth management for Saudi Arabia, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg. She will join Goldman on November 8.

The bank said AlMuhaid will one of the first Saudi female investment bankers and will be joined by four more advisers in Dubai and two in Geneva. AlMuhaid, previously worked at Investcorp and Saudi private equity group Jadwa Investment Company.

Gabriel Aractingi, a former executive at UBS and Bahrain’s Investcorp Bank was appointed in the team as head of the Middle East and North Africa region for the private banking division, earlier this year.

Several of the new hires are joining from UBS and Investcorp, Bloomberg said.

The bank earlier named Fadi Abuali and Zaid Khaldi as co-chief executive officers for the Middle East and North Africa after Wassim Younan, the regional CEO, retired at the end of 2020.

The goal in the region, home to a growing number of the ultra-rich, is to double the size of Goldman’s wealth management business, co-head of private wealth management for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Stefan Bollinger, said.

Rich families in the Middle East, which often also control large conglomerates, are an attractive opportunity, he said.