Executive Profile: O.D. Kobo

O.D. Kobo is an alternative asset manager with over two decades of experience in capital deployment, structured finance, and cross-border investment, with a focus on technology, energy, and infrastructure.

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Raised in Hong Kong and educated in London, he has led investment strategy, syndication, and governance across transactions involving sovereign wealth funds, state-owned enterprises, institutional investors, and private capital groups in Asia, Europe, Russia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). His work has involved structuring across complex legal and political jurisdictions, in partnership with state and corporate stakeholders.

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From 2003 to 2010, he directed the Qatar Investment Authority’s technology investments in China during a period of significant Gulf-to-Asia capital allocation, working under Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, then Prime Minister of Qatar and Chairman of QIA. From 2007 to 2018, he was a Partner at PIR Equities, a UK-based private equity firm he co-founded and co-managed, focused on private market strategies. Notable transactions during this period included energy-related infrastructure projects linking Africa, Russia, and the Gulf (2008–2014), technology ventures in the Middle East in partnership with Roman Abramovich of Millhouse Capital (2012–2015), the $680 million sale of Camden Market Holdings to Teddy Sagi of Globe Invest (2014), and one of the UK’s first institutional allocations to digital assets (£50 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum, 2017–2018).

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Between 2020 and 2023, he co-led the structuring and syndication of a data and infrastructure platform in North Africa with PRC state-owned enterprises and regional ministries. Earlier in his career, he co-founded China-based technology firms KGIM and SinoSheen Investments, which were later acquired by global technology and telecom groups. His private market activity has been cited in leading financial publications.

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He studied Business at Regent’s Business School London and Finance at the London School of Economics before returning to China in 1999 to begin his investment career.