Shailesh Dash: A Promising, Future Minded Entrepreneur Driving UAE Investments
Shailesh Dash is a true veteran of the alternative investment sector, with a focus on progressive investments that don’t over promise and under deliver. With 20 years of experience under his belt, Dash has a proven track record of identifying success stories built on infrastructure that grows opportunity for everyone. He is one of the foremost voices in the Middle East, promoting the ethical and socially responsible investments that will drive the future economy of the South East Asian region.
Dash’s career has been full of exciting highs and lows, in just a short time span. Across 22+ years in the industry, Dash has served on the board for 12 major companies and been the recipient of multiple rankings as one of the most influential people the world over. Dash has remained consistently focused on socially and environmentally progressive investments that provide sustainable returns to a worldwide group of investors in a market traditionally defined by its largest export.
Dash’s secrets to success involve looking closely at the region, developing a sense for what communities need to thrive, and locating investors open to seeing the opportunity he sees.
Life
Shailesh Dash is a post graduate in Business Management, and became a member of the CFA Institute. Dash has learned to utilize turnaround strategies as a means for success. Essentially, Dash looks for opportunities to recover certain companies and bets they will succeed. Over the years, he has developed a talent for identifying potential lucrative investments. His wealth and success come primarily from those who misjudge failure and don’t see opportunity.
Thanks to his keen regional sense, Shailesh has developed an innovative approach to closing these types of deals. His first big challenges might have felt insurmountable for most juniors or executives: managing $4 billion in assets. He would also execute 14 IPO and manage 5 trade sales before creating the second larges PE business in the Middle Eastern region.
Wanting to strike out on his own, driven by his own philosophies on investment and growth, he created Al Masah Capital in 2010. His established goal was the improvement of vital infrastructure throughout the Middle East, identifying several key areas where growth would lead to measurable progress. Healthcare to improve the general welfare of people, education to equip everyone with the tools they need for success, along with food and the necessary logistics to deliver supplies when and where they are needed. For these efforts, Dash and Al Masah raised more than $1 billion in capital.
Alternative Investments
Dash’s success comes from what most investors would refer to as “alternative investments”, which are a class of investments typically accessible to a certain type of investor. They are another way of referring to investments most would consider risky. Risk and due diligence are linked, though, and smart business people continually find opportunity in these types of investments. Assets consisting of real estate, hedge funds or derivatives contracts all contribute to a portfolio containing alternative investments.
Another common vessel for alternative investments is the highly publicized “private equity” market, which is basically lenders loaning to a particular type of client. It’s common in America to see investors pouring money into technology ventures. In the UAE, oil and real estate are the significant draws. Dash goes against that grain, and with an environmental solution geared toward long term change.
These higher risk portfolios aren’t for every type of investor. They require a great deal of capital to start, and a considerable stomach for risk. That’s without going into detail about due diligence and potential unforeseen costs. It’s difficult for the average investor to even model these types of scenarios with any kind of certainty.
Another way of thinking about alternative investments is to consider a seller who is trying to offload both a classic car and 1,000 shares of Amazon stock. While there are buyers for the particular make and model that seller is offering, they are considerably fewer and may be more scrutinous than those who would buy shares of Amazon. Thanks to risk and market familiarity, our theoretical seller might find himself without a buyer for a long time.
However, the buyer wins in this scenario. Especially if the seller really needs to get rid of that car. The buyer can command the price, and if the car is actually worth decent money, then the new buyer could reap the profits were he willing to do his homework and locate more motivated buyers.
Thanks to the high initial investments, alternative investments aren’t part of the usual diversification strategy. These types of investments are complicated further at the global level, which is where Dash excels.
Dash’s gift lies with identifying regional trends and ethical paths forward for future development. Sustainability is at the forefront of many initiatives backed by Al Masah, and Dash. A great deal of capital has been concentrated on building out this new infrastructure, which would be considered the risky bet in a market dominated by a single export.
Money Laundering
Dash’s written work has covered some of the intricacies of money laundering in detail. He has documented the steps taken by the UAE government to combat the growing problem, including legislative steps taken to try and stop the practice entirely. The UAE has worked extensively to decrease financial crime related to terrorism, and Dash is one of the loudest voices decrying the practice of ignoring this type of crime.
As an important influencer in the region, Dash’s voice has helped change perceptions about money laundering and helped more executives become conscious of the practice and its impact on the larger market.
Future Prospects
What separates Dash from the average hedge fund manager is consistency. Across 22+ years, Dash and his companies have received 11 separate awards for excellence within their respective fields. Al Masah has raised an incredible amount of capital in a very short period of time, something nearly unheard of at the world stage.
Today, Dash heads Regulus Advisors and seeks additional opportunities for growth. A leading figure in the Gulf, and in Middle East development, Dash has a long story ahead of him.
Author’s Bio
Yunas Chaudhry is a super-connector with Darkroom Clicks Photographers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, Photography, branding and networking. He frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing, digital photography,.
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