David H. Sambar

On the wall of David Sambar's well-appointed office on London's Park Lane, there is a map which shows what time it is in every country in the world, with constantly shifting colors to let you know where it is night and where the sun is still shining. But for Dr. Sambar, throughout a long and successful career as a banker, money manager, financial advisor and investor, the sun has always seemed to be shining more beckoningly in the United States than anywhere else.

Dr. Sambar is a Lebanese who lives in London and who since his birth in Haifa, Palestine, 52 years ago has also lived in Beirut, Paris, Geneva and New York. "The world is my oyster," he likes to say—by which he means that he enjoys travel and feels comfortably at home in both East and West. But during his career in finance, the United States has usually been the first and longest stop, so to speak, on his business itineraries.

This is not to say that the U.S. does not hold similar attractions for other Arab moneymen—who seem to be in general agreement that the U.S.'s political stability and the size and diversity of its markets make it the El Dorado for investing funds. But only a relatively few of them have established a U.S. connection as eclectic as Dr. Sambar's, or have had one for as long.

The Sambar Connection

The U.S.-Sambar connection began back in 1955, when Dr. Sambar joined Chase Manhattan Bank in Beirut. By the time he left the bank 21 years later, he was in charge of worldwide private placements in Chase's merchant banking subsidiary in London. He parted with Chase to take over as head of international operations for the Sharjah Group—a large investment pool owned by Arabs from the private sector—and was able to make use of his American contacts in building up the group's portfolio, and in setting up some substantial investment vehicles of his own. He stayed with Sharjah for five years.

Last year, Dr. Sambar set up his own organization, Sambar Associates, which he uses as an umbrella for his myriad activities as an investment banker and company director. These include his management of Finarab Trust, a Saudi-owned investment group with several hundred million dollars of invested assets; his work as a director for Finamerica, Inc., a New York financial services company and for Enertech, a New Orleans oil services firm, and his advisory role for Mediterranee Investors Group, an international investment banking organization. He also supervises his substantial holdings in many companies in the U.S. and Europe.

It is the United States which remains the main investment attraction for Dr. Sambar, and he has refused to be lured away, as some other international investors have been in recent years, by the romance of the Orient-hotels in Hong Kong, banks in Singapore, or equities on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. What lures him most—as might be expected frorn a man who has a psychedelic map on his wall (and a clock on his mantelpiece at home which will tell you the time only if you walk up to it and ask it to, in any language)—is high technology, and the United States is still the place, Dr. Sambar says, "where high technology is born." For years, he has been investing for him self and his clients in small, usually little-known companies in their early stages of growth. Now, he hopes to provide more capital for such companies by starting up—probably some time this year—an investment pool which will draw in a larger number of investors and will concentrate on the high-tech sector.

Dynamic Futurism

"We're tentatively going to call it 'Investors for a Better Tomorrow,'" says Dr. Sambar. "It will seek to identify and invest in dynamic growth companies which are futuristic—that is, companies that we think will have an impact on the world we live in during the years ahead."

But Dr. Sambar said that the investors who want to get in on the pool will have to be patient. "It won't be a go-go operation," he says. "We won't be traders. If you give me your money, you're going to have to wait a couple of years before I can talk to you again."

In the meantime, Dr. Sambar keeps on the road, travelling to the United States about once a month, as he has been doing for years—and generally crossing the Atlantic by Concorde to save time. On these missions he identifies opportunities, supervises current investments, and, as he puts it, "I keep my contacts warm."

Dr. Sambar is also active on the lecture circuit, frequently delivering papers on financial subjects in front of such bodies as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Stanford Research Institute, and the U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce. He is a trustee of the Center for International Business, in Dallas, Texas.

Dr. Sambar studied at the French Faculty of Law at St. Joseph University in Beirut, and was a graduate student at the American University of Beirut and at London University. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Lyons, France.