Chinese Firms Jostle With US Peers for Sliver of Gulf Oil Riches

A wave of Chinese banks, asset managers and hedge funds are ramping up in the Middle East, jostling with Wall Street firms who are making their own expansion push in a region flush with oil wealth.

Those efforts were on show in recent months, when a string of executives from China’s $1.35 trillion sovereign wealth fund made their way to the Middle East in the hope of finding a way to invest in the region.

Following a series of meetings with the region’s biggest alternative asset manager, the firms unveiled a first-of-its-kind $1 billion private equity fund and China Investment ...