The head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s wealth management business in the Middle East and North Africa has left after less than two years with the Wall Street firm, according to people familiar with knowledge of the matter.
(Bloomberg) —
The head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s wealth management business in the Middle East and North Africa has left after less than two years with the Wall Street firm, according to people familiar with knowledge of the matter.
Gabriel Aractingi departed from the US bank earlier this month due to personal reasons, one of the people said, declining to be identified because the information isn’t public. Aractingi joined Goldman Sachs in April 2021 to run its MENA private wealth management unit out of Geneva.
During his tenure, Aractingi led a period of expansion for the bank in the Middle East as the region became a top destination for the world’s rich. At the time of his appointment, Goldman Sachs pledged to double the size of its regional private banking business — both in terms of headcount and the amount of client money it manages.
Aractingi didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Mideast Expansion
Goldman Sachs recently moved two senior private bankers to Dubai, adding to the firm’s headcount in the region after it hired in areas such as asset management, Islamic finance and investment banking. Such expansion contrasts with the bank’s activity elsewhere where it has cut thousands of positions, Bloomberg News has reported.
Global banks are vying to capture a bigger slice of the Middle East’s wealth management market, home to a sizable number of ultra-wealthy families, entrepreneurs and royals. Rival wealth managers such as UBS Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG are also investing heavily in the region.
One of the Middle East’s most seasoned private bankers, Aractingi had previously been UBS’s head of global family office for MENA since 2018 and was chief executive officer for Morgan Stanley in Saudi Arabia.
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