Managing Director & Senior Partner, Middle East
Markus Massi is a core member of Boston Consulting Group’s Principal Investors & Private Equity (PIPE) and Financial Institutions practices. He leads BCG’s PIPE practice in the Middle East as well as BCG's global work with sovereign wealth funds (SWFs).
Since joining BCG in 2000, Markus has worked with numerous SWFs, pension funds, private equity companies, investment holdings, and family conglomerates on projects related to investment strategies, due diligence, portfolio enhancements, and a wide range of organizational and operational topics. Additionally, he has helped a number of government institutions develop country and sector strategies.
Beyond his work with principal investors, Markus has acquired in-depth expertise working with central banks, regulators, and exchanges and financial centers. He has worked on projects related to financial sector strategies, rules and regulations, supervisory tasks, and wide range of organizational and operational topics. His worked with more than 100 financial institutions across Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East.
Before joining BCG, Markus worked for several financial institutions in Frankfurt, New York, London, Luxembourg, and Brussels
Investors must put the technology, data management, and organizational practices in place to support sustainable growth.
With an eye to the recovery, fund leaders should reexamine who they want to be in the post-COVID world.
To prepare their funds and portfolio companies for the opportunities and demands that lie ahead, principal investors need to plan in layers and across multiple time horizons.
If the last decade was a golden age for PE, the next one could be more gilded. Funds have the potential to deliver exponential growth—provided firms make the needed strategic and operational changes.
Knowledge management is the next value frontier in private equity. It’s a dynamic function directly relevant to something all investment professionals care deeply about: creating value through their investments.
Confidence in their financial security is prompting GCC consumers to spend more, a survey shows. This could speed the development of the region’s e-commerce sector.
Unsurprisingly, the global slowdown of economic activity and the mounting geopolitical risks took a heavy toll on SWFs’ investment activity of the last semester. With deal values down 22% on a year-on-year basis, 2019 will most likely record a historical low in terms of SWF activity.
During the next slowdown, the smart money will double down on growth, fast-track transformation, and capitalize on attractive, well-priced opportunities.
In search of higher returns, sovereign investors have shifted away from traditionally liquid asset allocations centered on fixed income and public equities and toward more illiquid alternative investments—private equity, venture capital, real estate, and infrastructure.
Because digital solutions make it easier to send and receive money, they boost economic activity. Policymakers and companies should take steps now to accelerate adoption.
The SWF industry is living testing times. Oil-based funds are redefining their long-term strategies in a new environment of declining commodity prices and revenues, while trade-surplus funds are still grappling with the looming consequence of the “great deceleration” of emerging countries.