Mansoor Ijaz

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Mansoor Ijaz bigraphy, stories - American businessman

Mansoor Ijaz : biography

1961 –

Mansoor Ijaz (born August 1961) is an American financier of Pakistani ancestry and an owner of the Lotus F1 Formula One team ESPN . He is a hedge-fund manager and was for some time a media commentator, mostly in relation to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.CNN (October 18, 2001) (CNN interview of Ijaz) Obtained February 14, 2007. He is the founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management Ltd, a New York investment partnership since 1990 that includes retired General James Alan Abrahamson, former director of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Ijaz has had ties to former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, Jr..

Media Commentator

He used to appear regularly on a variety of financial and political news programs for CNN , Fox News, BBC, Germany’s ARD TV, Japan’s NHK, ABC and NBC. He has commented for PBS’ Newshour with Jim Lehrer , , , and ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel. Ijaz has been featured twice in Barron’s Currency Roundtable discussions. He has also contributed to the editorial pages of London’s Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, The Christian Science Monitor, The Weekly Standard, National Review, USA Today, and the Times of India. He endorsed views in the period prior to the Iraq War, later proven to be false, that included the presence of WMDs in Iraq and ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Among other topics, he has commented on the lack of wisdom in letting politics and policymakers ignore good intelligence, vis-à-vis changes in the Muslim world and nuclear proliferation http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/575nerhn.asp?pg=1

Ijaz was a Fox News Analyst and played a popular role on Special Report. He was a frequent guest on the show and appeared on various Fox programs on more than 100 occasions. He articulated opinions on a wide array of subjects, including some that supported the Bush administration’s policies on Iraq and Afghanistan. Some media outlets categorized his views as neo-conservative, placing him in the same category of analysts such as former CIA Director R. James Woolsey Jr., former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1187

In 2006, in an interview with Gulf News, Ijaz claimed that Iran already had a nuclear bomb and that US think-tanks were already formulating strategies to overthrow the Iranian Government. His opinion appeared in an interview published in Gulf News, a Dubai-based newspaper. http://gulfnews.com/news/region/iran/iran-has-bomb-and-trying-to-make-more-1.222961

Formula One

Mansoor Ijaz on the Grid at Monaco’s Grand PrixOn June 18, 2013, Genii Capital announced that it had sold a stake of 35% in Lotus F1 Team Limited (Lotus F1), a leading contender in Formula One’s Constructor’s Championship, to Infinity Racing Partners Limited, an investor consortium comprising an American hedge-fund management group (presumably Ijaz’s), an Abu Dhabi-based business group headed by Suhail Al Dhaheri and a royal family (presumed to be a member of the Brunei family from the business address available in Companies House documents for one of the consortium’s component partners). The deal was made for an undisclosed sum.

Ijaz is chairman of Infinity Racing Partners Limited. In a press statement ESPN released by Genii Capital’s principals, Gerard Lopez and Eric Lux, the team owners highlighted technological developments Infinity could bring to assisting Lotus F1’s race cars as engine configurations change in the 2014 season. Lopez and Lux also cited the global network of Infinity Racing’s principal partners and how this could potentially increase sponsorship revenues flowing to Lotus F1.

Ijaz’s younger brother, Mujeeb Ijaz, Boston Globe is a noted expert in the field of Lithium technologies and systems integration.