Abu Dhabi's $1 trillion fund rejigs strategy to speed up deals

Abu Dhabi's $1 trillion wealth fund is embracing a more scientific approach to investing, leaning more on its own quant team to speed up decision-making as it seeks to bolster returns.

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Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is using a 125-person division of data scientists to guide in-house investing, officials at the fund said in rare public comments to Bloomberg News. As part of the broad changes, it's also putting money more rapidly in private credit and has continued to ramp up allocations to private equity.

In addition, ADIA is working with a wider range of hedge funds offering everything from long-only bets to quant wagers, although its overall exposure to that sector won't necessarily increase.

The changes haven't previously been disclosed and mark a shift from the days when sovereign funds like ADIA were more focused on liquidity in the portfolio or conservative investments like government bonds and real estate. Given ADIA's size—it's the biggest Gulf wealth fund and the world's fourth-largest—even small tweaks can reverberate through the global financial ecosystem.