Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth manager missing

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-emirates-fund28-2010mar28,0,3343619.story

Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi missing

A glider carrying powerful finance official Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan, whom Forbes named the 27th-most powerful person in the world, crashed into a Morocco lake.

Reporting from Beirut - Rescuers searched a lake in Morocco on Saturday for the man who oversees one of the world's largest state-owned wealth funds after he disappeared in an air accident.

A glider carrying Ahmed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the managing director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, crashed Friday into the lake 20 miles southeast of the Moroccan capital, Rabat, state news agencies reported.

The glider's pilot was rescued and is in good condition, the reports said. But the search for Nahyan, whom Forbes named the 27th-most powerful person in the world last year, continued.

Abu Dhabi is the most influential and wealthy of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates. Nahyan, a member of the Emirates royal family, is the younger brother of Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan.

The secretive wealth fund, established amid an oil boom in 1976, draws 70% of all surplus revenue from Abu Dhabi's petroleum sales, the rest going to a sister fund.