The first meeting of l’Abrahamic Business Circle took place in Dubai on January 31, 2021. A great success according to its organizers. The stakes were high. It was about translating, in business terms, the Abraham chords, two peace treaties between Israel on the one hand, and the United Arab Emirates on the one hand, and Bahrain on the other hand, signed on September 15, 2020 at the White House, accompanied by a tripartite declaration also signed by the president American, at the time Donald Trump, as a witness.
L’Abrahamic Business Circle, a club of businessmen and Emirati dignitaries, was created in the wake of this diplomatic breach. It is an economic and financial variation of Abraham chords.
Founder and linchpin of this club, Raphael Nagel, 50, is a businessman of Judeo-German-Spanish origin, familiar with the Emirati elite. “After pearls, oil and tourism, the alliance with Israel will be the new growth engine of the Emirates”, he believes. He shares the club presidency with the Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Juma Al Maktoum, member of the royal family.
Nagel is a smart and happy businessman. One of his financial achievements is to have bought at a low price in 2010 the former Headquarters of the Luftwaffe in Berlin, during the Second World War, to have converted it into a manufacturing site in the field of the nanotechnology, and then selling it to investors. “I wanted to change something negative in our history, he explains, into something positive for the future. For a Jew, that makes a lot of sense ”.
Nagel is also outspoken, with phrases like: “Lending money to friends is my greatest regret, because I lost money and friends there”. He never travels in business class, he says, even when he has the opportunity, to set an example for his staff. During the financial crisis of 2012-13, he set up a foundation, Nagel Foundation, to help destitute families in Spain. He is also a savvy art collector, having purchased a Miro some ten years ago. Politically, he is a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister.
During the inaugural meeting of the Club on January 31, a first deal was signed between Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Juma Al Maktoum, already appointed, and Tatiana Vishnevskaya, figure of Russian television, but also specializing in investment advice to UHNWI (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals). They are “ultrariche”, men or women, who each weigh more than $ 30 million excluding property. This deal is intended to attract 100 million dollars of investment to the United Arab Emirates over the next twelve months. Ms. Vishnevskaya is well known in the United Arab Emirates where she has already done business with the same prince.
As we know, the ultra rich have become even richer thanks to the Covid pandemic, and it is a question of recycling covidollars, as in the past, at the end of the 1970s, we were working to recycle petrodollars. But the petrodollars were going to invest in the economy of the countries consuming black gold, while the covidollars are directed here towards the Arab sands to water them and make them flourish… We are delighted about this since Raphaël Nagel says he is assured of capacities of what he calls “economic diplomacy” to build bridges between peoples. Based in Dubai itself, it sees the United Arab Emirates as a “global hub” for business across the Middle East. TheAbrahamic Business Circle can only strengthen this position.