Hamzah Behbehani

Hamzah Behbehani
Born	Hamzah M. Behbehani
Alma mater	San Francisco State University, University of California Santa Barbara
Owner In office 2008 - Present Employer Hamzah Behbehani Economic Consultancy  Executive Vice President In office 2004 - 2008 Employer Kuwaiti Finance Investment Company In office 1997 - 2004 Employer Gulf Investment Corporation  director In office 1995 - 1996 Employer KuwAm Preceded by Piero Ostellino Succeeded by Shabtai Shavit Also a partner, and named as a principal, along with Wirt Walker and Al Sabah, in lawsuits in which KuwAm engaged.  Director In office 1993 - 1994 Employer Cresvale Limited  Private Banker In office 1992 Employer Merrill Lynch International Bank Location London,  UK Middle East Sales  Director of Portfolio Management In office 1986 - 1992 Employer Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissments Multi Currency Fixed Income, Equities and Hybrids  Senior Vice President In office 1982 - 1986 Head of Portfolio Management in 1985. Multi-currency fixed income, equity and hybrids.

Background

He attended school from 1965 to 1975 in Lebanon before attending high school in Fairfax, Virginia. He studied Business Administration in California, gaining an MBA in 1982.

Career

From 1986 to 1992, Behbehani had worked for the UK branch of the Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissments (BAII), one of the Arab-Western partnership banks started in the 1970's. He then spent three years with investment companies in London, before joining KuwAm.

Behbehani left KuwAm to become Senior Vice President at Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC), where he remained until 2004. GIC’s 2002 annual report lists Behbehani as “Head of Marketing.”[18] From 2004 to 2008, Behbehani was Executive Vice President at Kuwaiti Finance Investment Company (KFIC).

"The relationship between the Kuwaiti firms that Behbehani worked for, the Al Sabah family, and the prime BCCI funding vehicle — the Kuwaiti International Finance Company (KIFCO) — remains to be revealed. However, the U.S Senate investigation did turn up a clue. The IZ Company for Exchange, indicted by the Senate committee, was run by one Subhash Sgar, who was also a director of the Al-Sabah General Electrical company. The Senate Committee reported that, “Concerning BCCI’s banking arm in Kuwait, the Kuwait International Finance Company (KIFCO), Price Waterhouse found that placements recorded by BCCI with KIFCO were inconsistent with Kifco’s financial statements regarding the same transactions. Price Waterhouse noted that the principal mechanism for repaying Kifco’s loans from BCCI was a mysterious Kuwaiti entity called “the IZ company for Exchange,” and that “we now have suspicions as to the propriety of the transactions.”"[19]