西方世界错失中东三大良机

    相信可以对线性发展型职业做出线性预期的人可能会认为阿里夫•纳克维一直都没有选对时机。这位出生在卡拉奇的投资人曾研究过苏维埃经济体系和国家规划，但没过几年苏联就分崩离析。伊拉克入侵科威特三天后，纳克维从英国来到沙特。他以负责人和投资人的身份设立了Celebration of Entrepreneurship，这是当时中东最大的创业家团体，而两个月后就爆发了阿拉伯之春运动。

    但除了他的业绩，这位了不起的企业家再没有什么东西具有线性特征，或者说符合线性预期。1994年，纳克维拿着7.5万美元积蓄来到迪拜，开始通过逆市操作来寻找投资机会。随后的15年中，他的投资公司Abraaj Group实际上推动了中东和北非建立自己的私募基金行业。2012年夏天，Abraaj Group收购了设在伦敦的私募基金公司Aureos Capital。现在，这家公司已成为全球最主要的增长型市场投资人之一。Abraaj Group管理着80多亿美元资产，通过七个业务中心在35座城市开展经营活动，从拉美到中国，从哈萨克斯坦到南非，到处都有它的投资印记。

    因此，对于目前中东的不确定性和机遇，以及它们与新兴市场整体趋势的契合，纳克维有话要说并不让人感到意外。

    上个月，我和纳克维在他的纽约酒店套房里共饮咖啡。他说：“现在许多人在观察这个世界，特别是把目光落在中东时都会犯一个错误。那就是，他们对中东一概而论，并不了解各个国家的细微差别。西方、尤其是西方媒体似乎只会把中东看做一个大战场。叙利亚的情况不应抹杀中东国家所能取得的成就。但西方世界的观点正是如此。”

    纳克维相信，实际上更大的问题在于西方世界忽略了中东的三大实际情况，而不是对中东有哪些误解。

    Those who believe linear careers are linearly predictable might think Arif Naqvi has had consistently bad timing. The Karachi-born investor studied Soviet Economic Systems and National Planning at the London School of Economics a few years before the Soviet Union collapsed. He moved from London to Saudi Arabia three days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He led and funded the Celebration of Entrepreneurship, then the largest gathering of start-up entrepreneurs in the Middle East, two months before the Arab uprisings consumed the region.

    But there is nothing linear or linearly predictable in this remarkable entrepreneur except his performance. Naqvi arrived in Dubai in 1994 with a total savings of $75,000 and set to work to find investment opportunity by making contrarian bets. Over the subsequent fifteen years, his investment firm Abraaj Group effectively helped give birth to the private equity industry in the Middle East and North Africa. Today, after acquiring the London-based private equity fund Aureos Capital in the summer of 2012, Abraaj is among the largest growth market investors worldwide. It manages over $8 billion, operating out of seven hubs across 35 cities, with investments from Latin America to China, from Kazakhstan to South Africa.

    It is no surprise that he has something to say about the uncertainty and opportunity in today's Middle East, and how this fits into broader trend for new markets.

    "The mistake so many people looking at the world make today, especially when they consider the Middle East is that they paint it all with one brush as opposed to understanding the nuances within each of country," Naqvi told me over coffee in his New York City hotel suite last month. "The West -- particularly Western media -- doesn't seem to be able to discuss the region in any other way than as to suggest it is simply one big war zone. Events that happen in Syria should not detract from what the region can accomplish. But they do."

    In fact, Naqvi believes, the problem is not so much what the West misunderstands as it is three realities it misses altogether.