Sectors include those where the specialisation and expertise of German firms and high net Gulf investors can collaborate, Arno Fuchs, the chief executive of the German bank, said.
Gulf states have stakes in several high profile German multinationals, predominantly through their burgeoning sovereign wealth funds. These include Qatar Holding’s 10% stake in car maker Porsche, and Kuwait Investment Authority’s 6.9% stake in auto giant Daimler.
Strategic partnerships between companies with a market cap of between $ 100mn and $ 1bn in the industrial and high technology are a natural investment fit for Gulf institutional and high net worth investors, Fuchs said.
“There is now a shift towards strategically oriented investors. The companies that investors are opting for do have a strategic interest,” he said.
Schoeller Bleckmann Oilfield Equipment – an Austrian firm – is one of the companies that attended a capital markets day organised by FCF in Abu Dhabi for which the bank hopes to act as a matchmaker in a German-Gulf alliance.
Aurubis, Europe’s biggest copper producer, also participated in the conference, as well as firms from sectors such as renewable energy, aircraft engines, and private equity.
“The products that Germany has to offer are the products the region needs,” Fuchs said. “Moreover the weaker euro is cheaper for the import of infrastructure project equipment.”
Privately owned Stulz H+E, a water and waste water treatment specialist, is in talks with Kuwait’s Kharafi National for a strategic co-operation in Kuwait and the UAE.
Another listed German company, PSI, specialising in control and monitoring systems for the energy, utility, and chemical industries said it had a deal with a Saudi Arabian industrial firm to implement test applications.
