Reza Irani Kermani

Reza Irani-Kermani is a Geneva-based financier and the CEO and co-founder of Black Pearl Capital. He was educated in France — attending Lycée Razi and completing his International Baccalaureate at the Complexe Scolaire de Valbonne in Sophia Antipolis — before earning a degree in Production Engineering and Commerce from the University of Birmingham in the UK, completed in 1989.

He began his career in London that same year at Management Investment and Trade Ltd (MIT), a subsidiary of Geneva-based MKS Finance SA. He became a trader in 1990 and, by 1991, General Manager of MIT's London bullion and foreign-exchange operations, which under his management grew into one of the largest FX trading entities in the world, with daily turnover reported at roughly $10–11 billion. He subsequently led bullion and forex trading at Amalgamated Metals Corporation (AMC) in the mid-1990s, then joined The Abela Corporation, where he helped run a London-based family office overseeing diverse holdings across dozens of countries.

In the 2000s he co-founded Symphony Partners PLC with Abbas Jafarian. Following that venture, the two established Black Pearl Capital (BPC) in 2007 as a proprietary multi-family office, initially sourcing real estate deals across Eastern and Western Europe alongside global private equity transactions. The firm launched the Black Pearl Global Opportunity Fund in 2009. Kermani has also served as CEO of Marka Holding PJSC, a Dubai-listed retail and hospitality group.

Today Kermani leads Black Pearl Capital as a co-investment platform that has deployed more than $500 million across 30+ portfolio companies. Much of his current focus is on large-scale digital infrastructure — the firm reports co-investing in over 1,000 MW of data center capacity globally (roughly $15 billion in gross development value) — alongside a substantial UK residential development pipeline.

• Opportunistic, sector-agnostic private and public equity, sourced and executed through an "extensive partner network" — the firm positions itself as a co-investor rather than a passive check-writer.
• Conservative capital structure — the firm states it maintains conservative positioning and avoids leverage on its investments.
• Real estate across the full risk spectrum — from greenfield/development to core yielding assets; a UK residential pipeline of ~2,500 homes ($950M+ GDV).
• Digital and AI infrastructure as a core theme — hyperscale data centers globally, plus a recent $75M commitment to AI infrastructure in the GCC region via Nexus Ignite.
• Broad sector appetite spanning technology, financial services, industrial and renewable energy, natural resources, consumer/retail, and even niche premium manufacturing (high-end audio).
• Global mandate with a Middle East and European tilt, run out of Geneva with satellite offices in Dubai, London, Hong Kong, and Grand Cayman.