Mubadala Capital’s $3bn bid for Fortress Investment Group, a powerhouse investor in credit markets with a large bet on US rail infrastructure, has cleared a significant regulatory hurdle after the parties agreed to important concessions.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States had approved Fortress’s sale of a majority equity interest to Mubadala, the investment arm of Abu Dhabi’s almost $300bn-in-assets sovereign wealth fund, three people briefed on the matter said.
The clearance comes after Mubadala agreed to let the investment group commit to keeping data and technology inside the US, on top of an earlier pledge to waive day-to-day control over Fortress. The new concession comes as Washington is increasingly focused on protecting US intellectual property, spanning cyber security software and data algorithms, the sources noted.