The Key Man

Author Simon Clark and Will Louch
Narrator Peter Noble
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 11 hours and 22 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Corporate finance, Criminal investigation and detection, Fraud, International business, News media and journalism, Online finance and investing, Reportage, journalism or collected columns, Social impact of environmental issues.

Get in the xigxag app

This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.

Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }}

How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Impeccably researched and sumptuous in its detail... It's a page-turner' The Economist

'This book tells the story brilliantly... Well-paced and cleverly organised. It also draws some devastating conclusions' The Sunday Times

'A riveting account of the intertwining of brilliance and greed' The Business Standard

In this compelling story of greed, chicanery and tarnished idealism, two Wall Street Journal reporters investigate a man who Bill Gates and Western governments entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars to make profits and end poverty but now stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest, most brazen frauds ever.

Arif Naqvi was charismatic, inspiring and self-made. The founder of the Dubai-based private-equity firm Abraaj, he was the Key Man to the global elite searching for impact investments to make money and do good. He persuaded politicians he could help stabilize the Middle East after 9/11 by providing jobs and guided executives to opportunities in cities they struggled to find on the map. Bill Gates helped him start a billion-dollar fund to improve health care in poor countries, and the UN and Interpol appointed him to boards. Naqvi also won the support of President Obama's administration and the chief of a British government fund compared him to Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible.

The only problem? In 2019 Arif Naqvi was arrested on charges of fraud and racketeering at Heathrow airport. A British judge has approved his extradition to the US and he faces up to 291 years in jail if found guilty.

With a cast featuring famous billionaires and statesmen moving across Asia, Africa, Europe and America, The Key Man is the story of how the global elite was duped by a capitalist fairy tale. Clark and Louch's thrilling investigation exposes one of the world's most audacious scams and shines a light on the hypocrisy, corruption and greed at the heart of the global financial system.

'An unbelievable true tale of greed, corruption and manipulation among the world's financial elite' Harry Markopolos, the Bernie Madoff whistleblower

Critics Review

A scorching epilogue… This is tough stuff and this is a tough book that should contribute to much greater scepticism about the bloated financial system
The Sunday Times
Impeccably researched and sumptuous in its detail…It is a page-turner, built around a riveting portrait of the key man of the title. Mr. Naqvi who comes across as a teeming mass of contradictions
The Economist
A pacy and deeply-reported tale
Financial Times
Gripping… The account raises questions over whether ‘impact investing’ and ‘stakeholder capitalism’ are less about poverty alleviation for the world than guilt alleviation for the Davos elite
Guardian
For an astonishing story of how the global economy can be manipulated, read the devastating account in The Key Man
David Ignatius, Washington Post
A riveting account of the intertwining of brilliance and greed… Should be a mandatory read at all schools of journalism and business schools. It’s a rare tour de force from which both can learn
Business Standard, India
Clark and Louch have done an outstanding job in untangling the knots that usually keep the secretive world of private equity out of reach for most people
Pakistan's Dawn
This excellent book, which is more true crime than finance, describes in cinematic detail how Naqvi and his colleagues pumped up valuations, moved money between the company, its funds and their personal accounts, and lied about performance
Reuters
It’s a sorry tale, one that raises important questions about our ability to deliver ‘ethical’ capitalism
Chris Blackhurst, The National
Spellbinding. You won’t want to put the book down
Eileen Applebaum, coauthor of Private Equity at Work
An unbelievable true tale of greed, corruption and manipulation among the world’s financial elite and how the World Bank, Bill Gates and the governments of the US, UK, France, and many more fell victim to the world’s largest private equity Ponzi scheme
Harry Markopolos, the Bernie Madoff whistleblower
The rigour and colossal effort that went into this book transpires on each page. There is no dull moment. It is 300 pages of reading pleasure mixed with serious discomfort at what is being presented
Ludovic Phalippou, professor of Financial Economics at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
A rip-roaring account of one of the biggest frauds in corporate history
Owen Walker, award-winning FT journalist and author of Built on a Lie
This splendid cautionary tale lays bare the vulnerabilities of the world of high finance, where even the grandees of Davos were marks for the kid from Karachi
John Helyar, coauthor of Barbarians at the Gate
A highly readable reminder of how greed and gullibility so often go together, and why we need good investigative journalism to keep reminding us that if the pitch (and the person doing the pitch) look just too good to be true there is probably something fishy going on behind the scenes
Professor Sir David Omand, former director of GCHQ and author of How Spies Think
An emphatic indictment of the ‘expert class’ people who think agility with numbers is somehow equivalent to wisdom and morality
Duff McDonald, author of The Golden Passport

More from the same

Narrator

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.