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The bank has reported healthy profits year after year. (In 1994 it posted a net profit of $51 million, down from record earnings of $67.3 million in 1993.) Its stock, listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange, has quadrupled in price since the bank's founding. But for Investcorp clients who participate in takeovers arranged by the bank, it has not always been smooth sailing. Many deals have been duds. Dellwood Foods, a troubled New York dairy acquired in 1985, languishes unsold in Investcorp's portfolio. Also unsold is Chaumet, a world-famous French jeweler, which has racked up millions of dollars in losses. Other flops include the Carvel ice-cream chain and New York Department Stores of Puerto Rico, disposed of last year at a substantial loss. A huge disappointment has been Color Tile, America's largest chain of floor-covering stores. The company lost $46.3 million last year and was close to bankruptcy until Investcorp and other investors pumped in $30 million in August. Kirdar acknowledges that many deals have not worked out as hoped, but cites the bank's willingness to work with troubled companies over the long haul, nursing them back to health.
Investcorp's biggest deal ever was the 1990 takeover of Saks Fifth Avenue. When Investcorp bought the prestigious chain, it was evidently hoping to repeat its triumph with Tiffany. Investcorp certainly promoted Saks to its clients that way. A 1990 private-placement memo to Arab clients obtained by TIME contains an extremely bullish forecast on the first page: Saks was expected to produce an investment return of 25.9% a year, and was likely to be sold within four years. One reason Investcorp failed to repeat its Tiffany coup with Saks is that the $1.6 billion purchase price was $200 million to $300 million too high, according to several sources, including a former Investcorp executive with direct knowledge of the deal. "Kirdar wanted it badly," recalls this source, "and he said, 'Let's just do a bid that'll knock everybody out.'" During the two years after the takeover, Saks reportedly lost $398 million, and Investcorp and its clients were forced to invest an additional $300 million in the company. More than five years have passed, and there has been no public offering. Investcorp says Saks has rebounded, but it declines to provide details or predict when the company will go public.
How has Investcorp managed to raise billions of dollars when its track record is so uneven? Its sales force is based in Bahrain, about an hour's flight from most of the bank's clients. Scores of Arabic-speaking marketers travel throughout the region, offering deals and updates on past transactions. It's a level of "expensive, personalized service," says Kirdar, that Investcorp's competitors can't match. Investcorp's success in the Middle East may also be due to its marketing documents, which are not overseen by Western regulatory agencies. The contrast is striking between an Investcorp private-placement memorandum and a prospectus approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC-approved prospectus for Gucci is filled with warnings and disclaimers, including a section on "risk factors" that runs 3 1/2 pages. A Saks private-placement memorandum circulated to mostly Arab investors discusses risk factors in less than a page and the language is much less blunt.