Foreign appetite bolstered Sharjah Islamic’s USD 710 mn rights issue

The latest sign that foreign capital has appetite for UAE opportunities despite the war: Sharjah Islamic Bank’s AED 2.59 bn (USD 710 mn) rights issue closed 3.2x oversubscribed, with foreign investors driving 55% of demand, the bank said. It’s the first major UAE equity raise since the war began.

MEANWHILE- Dubai Holding has become Emaar Properties’ largest shareholder after completing the acquisition of a 22.27% stake from the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), taking its overall holding to 29.73%, per a press release. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Bloomberg pegged the transferred stake at roughly AED 23.9 bn (USD 6.5 bn) based on Emaar’s latest close. The deal came on the back of Emaar’s strong 1Q earnings, the company’s bottom line up 38% y-o-y to AED 6.4 bn.

Think of it as a shuffle rather than a takeover: This is more “a government-level restructuring rather than a commercial transaction, as the ultimate ownership remains within the Dubai government,” CI Capital’s Marlene Milad says.

Mubadala has invested USD 325 mn in Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm off the UK coast, joining a consortium led by Apollo Global Management, Mubadala said in a statement. Apollo holds a 50% stake in the JV, with Ørsted retaining the other half and operational control. At 2.9 GW, Hornsea 3 will be the world’s single largest offshore wind farm when it comes online in 2028 — and it sits inside a broader Mubadala renewables push that also includes Skyborn Renewables, Tata Power Renewables, Rezolv, and Zenobē.

Shuaa Capital and Key Capital have launched the region’s first dedicated venture capital secondaries fund — a USD 50 mn ADGM-domiciled limited partnership that has already closed two transactions, the two said in a statement (pdf). Dubai-based Shuaa is bringing the institutional advisory and capital markets know-how, while Abu Dhabi-based Key Capital is the sourcing and investment strategy side of the equation. The fund targets shares from the cap table — angels, founders, employees — rather than LP positions. “We think they have the biggest need, [because] it impacts their life directly,” Key Capital Managing Partner Basil Moftah tells EnterpriseAM.

Pricing reflects the asset class. Haircuts in the region run “anywhere between 20% and 40% for immediate liquidity based on current valuations,” Moftah says — which makes sense, considering “you’re holding an illiquid asset that you need to sell now.” The regional secondaries market is already worth over USD 1 bn by Key Capital’s count, and Moftah says demand has grown 20-25% in the past month alone.

Our take: With IPO windows still tight (see our story above), this is the kind of release valve a maturing VC ecosystem may have been waiting for.

SRMG, the influential Tadawul-listed media group that publishes Asharq Al-Awsat and Arab News, is pushing deeper into digital media, saying in a filing with Tadawul that it’s going to take its ownership of digital platform Thmanyah to 75% from 51% today. Thmanyah will raise its capital by tapping SAR 52.4 mn in accumulated funding already extended by SRMG’s Arab Media, alongside a SAR 45 mn cash payment to minority partners. Arab Media will also pour in some SAR 200 mn in additional funding over the next four years.

Why it matters: Thamanyah’s has evolved from a niche podcast network into a serious digital media play, buying up the exclusive rights to broadcast (state-backed) Saudi sports competitions for six seasons and pushing deeper into live sports and digital advertising.

A joint fund of Beltone Venture Capital and UAE-based Citadel International Holdings has exited its stake in Egyptian last-mile logistics player Bosta at a 75% IRR, Beltone’s said in a statement (pdf). Buyer and valuation weren’t disclosed. Bosta is reportedly lining up a USD 170 mn EGX listing later this year. A 75% IRR is a real number in a market where devaluation of the EGP has eaten through three years of growth. It’s Beltone’s fifth exit since the VC arm launched in 2023.

Beltone isn’t fully out: “We have exited via our joint fund with Citadel, but Beltone Venture Capital still holds an undisclosed stake in Bosta,” Beltone Venture Capital CEO and managing partner Ali Mokhtar tells EnterpriseAM.

Egypt’s PickAlbatros has filed to acquire Mövenpick Casablanca from Casablanca-listed insurer Sanlam Morocco and its hotel-holding subsidiary Luxor, according to a competition watchdog notice (pdf). It’s the group’s second Casablanca acquisition in roughly a month — after Sofitel Casablanca Tour Blanche for USD 47 mn in April — and the third hotel purchase inside a USD 200 mn 2026 pipeline that also includes the EGP 3.8 bn cash acquisition of Oberoi Sahl Hasheesh from EBank.

Driving the interest: Morocco logged 19.8 mn arrivals and USD 13.9 bn in tourism revenues last year, and the country is co-hosting the 2030 World Cup.

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GameStop’s audacious USD 55.5 bn bid for eBay has been rejected — and a quiet Gulf subplot may go out with it unless the game goes hostile. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen had been courting GCC sovereign wealth funds to bridge a roughly USD 26.1 bn equity gap on his 50-50 cash-and-stock offer, which carried a 20% premium to eBay’s closing price. eBay’s board called the proposal “neither credible nor attractive” yesterday, per Reuters.

MENA corporate venture capital is now an 86%-Gulf story, with Saudi Arabia leading on 57% of regional capital deployed over the past five years (c. USD 1.1 bn across 170 transactions) per a Magnitt report seen by EnterpriseAM.

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