Arif Masood Naqvi is a Pakistani businessman who was the founder and chief executive of the Dubai-based private equity firm, The Abraaj Group. The Abraaj Group was founded in 2002 and operated in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Turkey and Central Asia. In 2018, he was accused by investors of misappropriating funds, leading to the provisional liquidation of The Abraaj Group. The company also came under investigation by Dubai regulators. On 5 April 2019, he was arrested by authorities in the UK on fraud charges put forth by US after allegedly misappropriating $230 million from a healthcare fund. Later, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in absentia in the United Arab Emirates on charges of financial fraud.
Arif Naqvi began his career with Arthur Andersen in London and American Express in Karachi. In the early 1990s, he joined the Olayan Group in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom's largest trading company. In 1994 he started an investment firm in Dubai called Cupola with $50,000 of his own savings. In 1999, Naqvi purchased Inchcape Middle East, for $102 million, with $4.1 million in equity, making it the MENA region's first leveraged buyout. Naqvi then sold off pieces of the company for a total of $173 million. In 2002, Naqvi founded Abraaj Capital, and in 2012 the company merged with Aureos Capital to become The Abraaj Group. As of March 2018, Arif Naqvi has stepped down as CEO of The Abraaj Group, as the Company has become the subject of multiple investigations regarding its fund management practices. Naqvi is known as a collector of art and for establishing a collection of Middle Eastern art. In 2018, art owned by Naqvi was sold through Christie's for £2 million. In April 2019, Naqvi was arrested in the U.K. and faces extradition to the U.S. on charges of inflating company assets and fund misappropriation. However, in early May 2019, he was granted bail by a London court, for a record sum of 15 million British pounds but placed under what was effectively house arrest.
Philanthropy
In 2008, Naqvi and his family established the Aman Foundation, a local, not-for-profit trust in Pakistan, focusing on health, nutrition and education.
