Brady Dougan, Credit Suisse’ former CEO, has reached the pinnacle of his career. He’s one of the steering committee behind a U.S.-based investment boutique that arranges deals for kings and business leaders.
Brady Dougan in the autumn of 2016 caught the headlines with his plan to launch an investment and trading boutique. He said to have received the backing of Scepter Partners, a firm financed by a number of state funds and ultra-wealthy families, represented by the royal family of Brunei.
This week's report about Dougan having a new job wasn’t much news. Because Dougan has been managing partner at Scepter Partners for quite a while already.
The four men at the top of Scepter are super-charged in any sense of the word: apart from Dougan, the four partners includes Bob Diamond, former head of Barclays and acquaintance from Dougan’s time in Asia, Bill Doyle, previous head of Potash, and Rayo Withanage (pictured above) as primus inter pares, one of the most influential financiers in the Middle East and Asia.
Family Office for Kings
Matching the reputation of its managing committee, Scepter presents itself in a rather brash manner: the partners combined an unprecedented confluence of talent, experience and track record, according to the website of the company.
Scepter Partners is a young company still. It split off in 2014 from BMB Group, a family office and investment firm for royals and other rich families founded by Withanage and Brunei’s Prince Abdul Ali Yil Kabier.
Its aim was to make deals across the world just like an investment bank but as a syndicate of the really rich, mainly in raw materials and finance.
Money Not an Issue
Scepter started out with assets totaling $14 billion. Its main shareholders were worth more than $100 billion in assets. The group is using a holding structure as a shield to protect its interests. The holding is called The Sovereign Trust and presents itself as a philanthropic family office.
Since its early days, Scepter has expanded its influence rapidly. Prince Albert of Monaco in May presented the foundation of Monaco Investment Corp., a sort of state fund for the principality. His idea was to make use of the available resources of the rich residents of Monaco for private equity investments.
Dougan the Manager
Monaco Investment Corp. is being managed by Scepter Partners and Dougan, the former CS boss. The Monaco deal, which happened at exactly the time when Dougan joined the partners, contributed some $20 billion dollars to the private equity firm.
Scepter Partners is strong enough to conduct deals worth more than $100 billion, with the money at the fund’s disposal and the cash available at friends and families as well as considering the leverage finance tools mastered by experienced investment bankers such as Dougan and Diamond.
A paradise for an investment banker such as Dougan: a largely unregulated market, where no government authority can apply limits to how risky an investment can be.
Regulation That Stifled the Investment Banker
Brady, who will turn 58 this summer, has reached the pinnacle of his career, a career that made him very rich indeed. At Credit Suisse, the investment banker had come under an ever closer control of regulators after the disaster of the financial crises, a role that probably never matched his temperament. In 2015, Tidjane Thiam took over at the helm of CS.
Now, the son of railway workers in Illinois has the reached the highest echelon of society, where kings, sheiks, princes and rich dynasties gather to agree deals.
A Powerful Setup in the Making
At the same time, Dougan is advancing his plan for a new investment bank, having hired his first employees. Monaco Investment Corp. is said to be one of the shareholders.
Which comes in handy as Dougan already manages Monaco Investment Corp. Once his bank is up and running, it will be guaranteed a steady flow of deals thanks to Dougan’s involvement in Scepter Partners.
