Barrack Said He Hit Sovereign-Wealth ‘Jackpot’ With MBS Meeting

(Bloomberg) -- Colony Capital LLC founder Tom Barrack described his first meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016 as a “huge” opportunity to try to capture sovereign-wealth investment.

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“We hit the jackpot in the Middle East,” Barrack wrote in an August 2016 email to a colleague at Colony just after he met the budding leader known as MBS.

Barrack discussed the email Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, where he’s testifying in his own defense against charges that he sought to influence the campaign and administration of his longtime friend, Donald Trump, as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates.

“If you took the top 100 private equity firms, 15 or 20 of them have ownership by some of these sovereign wealth funds,” Barrack said, explaining his enthusiasm to the jury. “The rest are all envious of trying to create a relationship with them.”

It’s not clear how jurors will weigh such statements. Prosecutors claim that Barrack’s desire for UAE sovereign-wealth money drove him to try to shape US policy on the Gulf state’s behalf. Barrack claims $374 million in UAE funds invested with Colony were unrelated to any advice he gave the Trump campaign or administration.

Barrack said he met MBS in a palace in Morocco that was reminiscent of “Arabian Nights.” Earlier on the same day, Barrack also went on a bike ride outside Tangier with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed, the UAE’s national security adviser and a prominent businessman. Prosecutors claim Tahnoun directed actions by Barrack in the US, but the latter denied that on the stand.

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