The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest investors, said in a new annual financial review on Sunday that it made an annualized return of 6.5% over the last 20 years, despite losses from a $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup (NYSE: C) and other investments.
The annual report is the first performance disclosure that the fund has made since it was established in 1976. AIDA’s annual review is short on other disclosures that would be required in the United States. For example, the fund has not released any information about the total size of its portfolio and has never commented on estimates that others have made about the value of the fund, which some to believe near $500 billion.
ADIA is funded primarily from revenue from the world’s largest crude oil exporters. The fund has long been a quiet and conservative investor. The fund said that 80% of its assets were managed by outside fund managers and 60% of its assets are invested in index-tracking strategies.
The most interesting figures released by ADIA on Sunday were its annual average returns. The time horizon that ADIA has published, 20 and 30 years, are a bit too long to compare ADIA with other institutional investors. ADIA said that it had an annualized return of 6.5% between 1990 and 2010 and 8% between 1980 and 2010.
Recently, ADIA has received press in the United States for a $7.5 billion investment that it made in Citigroup in 2007. At the time, ADIA received special equity units for its cash infusion. The units came with a relatively high 11% annual payment. Today (March 15th), the first of those units are scheduled to convert to common shares at a share price of at least $31.83. Citigroup’s common shares ended trading on Friday valued at just under $4.00, meaning that ADIA will take a loss of about $28.00 for each share converted.
