 In the early 1990s, he joined the Olayan Group in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom's largest trading company.In 1994 he started an investment firm in Dubai called Cupola with $50,000 of his own savings.In 1999, Naqvi purchased Inchcape Middle East, for $102 million, with $4.1 million in equity, making it the MENA region's first leveraged buyout.