Azeem Ibrahim (1976 -) is a British entrepreneur. A self-made multi-millionaire, he began to accumulate wealth in 2004 when he noticed he was paying over the odds for maritime insurance. This led him to set up the ECM World Insurance Corporation, an e-commerce facility selling international maritime, transport and logistical insurance online.

Ibrahim is also the owner of ECM Holdings, which owns the European Commerce and Mercantile Bank and other financial concerns. A native of Glasgow, Scotland, he is a member of the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated wealth of US$106m.

Background

Azeem Ibrahim was born on 17th March, 1976 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was inaugurated onto The Sunday Times Rich List in 2007 when he was one of the wealthiest young Asians in the UK, at the age of just 30.

Business interests

Ibrahim started his own IT consultancy in 1997, which he ran until 2001 when he began a similar but larger operation in Germany. In 2004, he launched the ECM World Insurance Corporation, a proprietary online premium-rating and policy-issuance system with real time quotation catering for the maritime and transportation insurance market.

Later in 2004, Ibrahim used his entrepreneurial gift to identify a need for a private bank looking after the interests of commodity traders. He launched the European Commerce and Mercantile Bank, a private offshore bank specialising in accounts for corporations and wealthy individuals involved in commodity trading. ECM Bank developed its own sophisticated financial trading software that optimized trading speeds with a single multi-product spreadsheet interface offering real-time streaming quotes and quick click order entry with Real-time margin and activity reporting. The routing system searches for the best price available at the time of the trade, and unlike other routers, it dynamically routes all or parts of the trade to achieve optimal execution. The bank has offices in Sweden and the Emirates Tower in Dubai and has an estimated worth of US$92m.

ECM Bank’s parent company, ECM Holdings, also includes ECM Asset Management, a Swedish-registered credit union building society, and ECM Clearing House, a Panamanian-registered financial clearing house licensed to trade in currencies, precious metals and commodities. The parent company is currently rumoured to be investing heavily in cobalt mining in Zaire on behalf of the Chinese. However Ibrahim has repeatedly refused to confirm this.

Ibrahim is now one of the wealthiest young Asians in the UK, having entered the Scot’s Sunday Times Rich List in 2007 at number 73 and the Asian Rich List at number 64.

A keen scholar and a former member of the elite Parachute Regiment, Ibrahim is said to bring his academic mind, strategic thinking and love of military planning to his business dealings.

Academic life

Ibrahim has been described by his former professor as a ‘highly intellectual scholar’, ‘first-class critical thinker’ and ‘the star student of his department’. In 2003, he graduated from the University of Wales’ European Business Management School with an MBA and then completed an MSc.(Econ) in Strategic Studies analysing Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the US response. He is currently completing a PhD at the University of Cambridge considering the geopolitics of energy in the Caspian Basin, a topic on which he has written a book due in print in 2008.

Ibrahim was also elected a Full Member of the Institute of Directors in 2004 and is an active member of several think-tanks and academic institutions in the US and the UK. These include the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. He is regularly invited to deliver papers in front of these bodies and attend meetings to discuss current and emerging strategic problems with academics, politicians, diplomats and foreign-affairs analysts.

Charity works

Much of Ibrahim’s time is now devoted to his own charity, The Benevolence Fund, which sponsors high-achieving Bosnian students onto postgraduate education in Europe. The students take their new skills and knowledge back to Bosnia to help their communities. Ibrahim has obtained corporate sponsorship to build an endowment that will make the project self-sufficient.

==Other interests==



For seven years until early 2006, Ibrahim was a reservist in the elite British Parachute Regiment. Not much is known about his military service and Ibrahim has repeatedly refused to be drawn on giving details on it. A citizen of both the U.S. and the U.K., he is a fitness fanatic keen on marathon and fell running, and speaks four languages.


Categories: 1976 births British businesspeople