“I’ve been watching the sector grow,” Debow told The Circuit during an interview in Tel Aviv. “The accelerant has absolutely been the growth from the Gulf, whereby there’s this mutual trust between Indian health care companies, health professionals and people in the Gulf.”
Hong Kong-based fund manager Sean Debow discovered 14 years ago, when he ran a small regional investment firm, the growing demand from Arab Gulf states for knee and hip replacement surgery in private hospitals in New Delhi and Mumbai. Today, as CEO for Asia of Eurizon Asset Management, the Milan-based unit of Italy’s biggest banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, he invests in some of India’s biggest hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
“I’ve been watching the sector grow,” Debow told The Circuit during an interview in Tel Aviv. “The accelerant has absolutely been the growth from the Gulf, whereby there’s this mutual trust between Indian health care companies, health professionals and people in the Gulf,”
The close ties between India and the Gulf states has in turn become a pillar of the regional trade alliance known as “I2U2” that was designed to promote cooperation among India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the US, following up on the 2020 Abraham Accords. Creating the quartet was among the foreign policy objectives that U.S. President Joe Biden sought to reinforce during his visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia last July. Health care is among the central components of the initiative, which also aims to promote investment in water, energy, transportation, space and food security.
Besides health care, other areas where the commercial paths of the UAE, India and Israel intersect is in water conservation and the diamond trade
Debow, a 56-year-old Canadian who is also chief investment officer for Eurizon Asia and has spent three decades managing money in the region, describes a synergy among the group’s four members in the health care market. It’s based on the wide-ranging U.S. leadership in the field, the UAE’s willingness to invest large sums of money, Israel’s innovative medical startups and India’s position as the world’s fifth-biggest economy with a population that is projected to surpass China’s this year, he said. Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is the largest maker of generic drugs while India’s Sun Pharma is ranked No. 4.
Betting on India’s health care industry, where he says “it would not be unusual to see 30% compounded growth for the next five years,” Debow said cooperation with the UAE, Israel and the US is good for everyone.
The first project was a $2 billion investment by the UAE in developing a series of food parks across India that would use Israeli and US technologies to reduce food waste, conserve fresh water and use renewable energy sources. A second project is a hybrid renewable energy initiative in India’s Gujarat state to generate 300 megawatts of wind and solar capacity along with a battery system to store the energy.
Besides health care, other areas where the commercial paths of the UAE, India and Israel intersect is in water conservation and the diamond trade. Watergen, an Israeli company that can extract large quantities of drinking water from the air, opened a branch in India after a visit in 2018 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Watergen also started operating in the UAE after the Abraham Accords normalized ties between the two countries that had no diplomatic relations before 2020.
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