David Solomon

They want direct connectivity.

They want to show up while technology in the world evolves.

Human to human contact is not going away.

Well, I think the whole scope of economic activity has really changed enormously.

There's no question if you go back, my old days are a lot older than your old days.

But if you go back a while,

These nations were exporters of capital around the world, and they had not built the infrastructure of professional investment capabilities here locally, and so they were outsourcing those capabilities to institutions like ours and others.

Now they're really making long-term investments to build their economies, to allow their populations to participate, to attract investment here.

And so what they need, and they've got incredible investment infrastructures here localized on the ground.

What they need are ideas.

What they need are liquidity and capital.

What they need are strategic initiatives.

And so we're just in a moment in time where they have the capacity to do many more interesting things to build their economies.

Think about Saudi Arabia here in the kingdom, 35 million people.

You know, there's an enormous opportunity given that population to continue to expand the economic activity on a localized basis here.

And they're looking for partners that can help drive that.

This part of the world has always allocated a significant portion of their surpluses to investing in privates.

If what you're asking is, will there be interesting investment opportunities on the ground here in these local economies?

Yes, absolutely.

As these economies grow, there will be more interesting investment opportunities here on the ground that attract international capital from around the world.