Key Takeaways
- • Duet Group, co-founded by Henry Gabay and Alain Schibl in 2002 with $10 million, managed more than $5 billion by 2013, according to Financial News coverage of the firm's results.
- • Duet grew by backing individual managers across strategies rather than scaling one house strategy, adding equity special-situations, global macro, CTA, long-only African and private equity businesses.
- • By 2013 Duet was controlling shareholder of multiple asset managers, operating four subsidiaries regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and one regulated by the DIFC in the UAE.
- • Publisher context reports that Gabay was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for his role in a Cum-Ex tax scheme that cost Germany about $100 million, and describes Duet as a now-defunct firm.
Summary
A retrospective profile by the publisher traces how Duet Group grew from a single $10 million fund launched in 2002 into a multi-strategy platform managing more than $5 billion by 2013, according to Financial News. Gabay, who had previously worked in equity sales and investment banking at Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston, built the firm around the premise of backing managers with a demonstrated edge rather than forcing hires into a fixed house strategy. Duet later hired Osman Semerci, Merrill Lynch's former global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities, as chief executive.
The firm formalized a private equity arm in 2003 and moved toward direct control positions in operating businesses. Its 2012 investment in Dashen Brewery in Ethiopia, made alongside UK investor Vasari and the Ethiopian endowment fund TIRET Group, was at the time the largest private equity transaction completed in the country. Duet Private Equity also took a majority stake in AJEast Nigeria, maker of BIG Cola brands, and acquired Moldova's leading electricity distribution business in a \u20ac141 million deal serving roughly 900,000 customers. In 2018 Duet acquired Antwerp-based wealth manager Merit Capital, adding roughly 2,000 clients and expanding its fee-based wealth management business.
The article notes the firm's industry recognition, including the EMG Equity Fund of the Year award for Duet Africa Fund in 2018 and the MENA Fund Manager Awards Equity Fund of the Year for Duet Mena Fund in 2015. Duet India Hotels, developed with an IHG alliance for Holiday Inn Express properties, grew to six operating hotels with 960 rooms before the platform sold it to a conglomerate backed by Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund.
The publisher's own context adds a significant later development: Gabay was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for his role in a Cum-Ex tax scheme, and the firm is described as defunct. Gabay has denied any wrongdoing in earlier reporting. The primary article's characterization of Duet's durability should be read against that outcome.
The firm formalized a private equity arm in 2003 and moved toward direct control positions in operating businesses. Its 2012 investment in Dashen Brewery in Ethiopia, made alongside UK investor Vasari and the Ethiopian endowment fund TIRET Group, was at the time the largest private equity transaction completed in the country. Duet Private Equity also took a majority stake in AJEast Nigeria, maker of BIG Cola brands, and acquired Moldova's leading electricity distribution business in a \u20ac141 million deal serving roughly 900,000 customers. In 2018 Duet acquired Antwerp-based wealth manager Merit Capital, adding roughly 2,000 clients and expanding its fee-based wealth management business.
The article notes the firm's industry recognition, including the EMG Equity Fund of the Year award for Duet Africa Fund in 2018 and the MENA Fund Manager Awards Equity Fund of the Year for Duet Mena Fund in 2015. Duet India Hotels, developed with an IHG alliance for Holiday Inn Express properties, grew to six operating hotels with 960 rooms before the platform sold it to a conglomerate backed by Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund.
The publisher's own context adds a significant later development: Gabay was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for his role in a Cum-Ex tax scheme, and the firm is described as defunct. Gabay has denied any wrongdoing in earlier reporting. The primary article's characterization of Duet's durability should be read against that outcome.
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