The UAE is at the head of the pack as sovereign funds shift focus to infrastructure, industry, and AI

Capping a really busy week, we have a metric ton of news from sovereign funds, some M&A, and still more global financial services players pushing into the UAE and Saudi, war be damned. We think the sovereign fund news is worth watching — they’re restructuring and jockeying for position as they prepare for a decade-long cycle of investment in themes including infrastructure, defense, and AI.

BUT FIRST- Is the IPO window open again? It looked that way — at least until the most recent exchanges of fire between Iran and the US. Shares of Oman India Fertiliser co. (Omifco) jumped nearly 19% at the open as the company made its Muscat Stock Exchange debut on Wednesday. The OMR 260.9 mn (c. USD 678 mn) IPO was 18x oversubscribed and becomes the first GCC listing to make it to market since the war began.

Why it matters: Bankers with a deep pipeline of transactions in the UAE and Saudi are watching — and so, too, are Banque du Caire and financial services giant MNT in Egypt.

Muscat could follow with something rarer — a secondary. Asyad Group is considering the sale of at least 5% of Asyad Shipping — about USD 190 mn at current prices — to push the maritime unit’s free float to the 25% minimum Oman’s regulator requires. The transaction could be in the market before the end of this year. The state-backed group sold 20% in a February 2025 IPO; the stock has since doubled.

Cantor Fitzgerald is the latest Wall Street firm to expand in the UAE, war or not: The firm has hired 16 people to build out its fixed-income business outside the US, with most of the team based in Abu Dhabi, where it opened an office in December, Bloomberg reports. Cantor is led in our part of the world by veteran rainmaker Ali Khalpey, who runs investment banking and capital markets for the firm here. Jefferies and Lazard have been building in the Gulf too, and Bain Capital opened an Abu Dhabi office in April.

AND- Deutsche Bank has joined the Riyadh club, securing a regional headquarters license in Saudi Arabia. It joins JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley — none of them would have access to government mandates in the Kingdom without that particular piece of paper.

MEANWILE- The DFSA has opened consultations (pdf) on DIFC’s biggest funds overhaul since 2010, scrapping rigid fund classifications, killing the external fund manager regime, and cutting the base capital requirement for credit-fund managers to USD 40k from USD 140k while dropping their separate USD 10k application and USD 10k annual fees, according to a statement. The regulator is accepting comments through 7 September as it looks to burnish its competitiveness against ADGM and Luxembourg, among other centers.

Sovereign wealth funds managing more than USD 15 tn are placing more and more weight on strategic national priorities, including themes like resilient infrastructure, domestic industry, and AI, according to an IE University study covered by Reuters today.

By the numbers: Direct investments fell 17% to 391 transactions in the 18 months to December 2025, but total spending jumped 91% to USD 404 bn. AI took roughly a third of that, and the US drew the largest share of capital at USD 220.4 bn. “Sovereign wealth funds are more and more used by governments to deploy national strategies, develop stronger positions in the global value chains,” said Javier Capapé, who directs sovereign wealth research at IE — and even these figures, he says, are “the tip of the iceberg,” since much sovereign dealmaking is never disclosed.

Abu Dhabi is restructuring its sovereign wealth setup around that mandate. L’imad Holding — the USD 300 bn fund created last year that absorbed ADQ in January — is overhauling its executive ranks, with BCG running recruitment and some ex-ADQ executives asked to reapply for their jobs, Bloomberg reports. Chaired by Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed and run by CEO Jassem Al Zaabi, the fund will sit at the center of the emirate’s push into defense and infrastructure.

SOUND SMART- ADQ’s absorption by L’Imad is the same consolidation play Abu Dhabi has run since merging Mubadala with IPIC in 2017: fewer, larger institutions with clearer mandates and the ability to cover bigger and bigger tickets.

MEANWHILE- AC Limited, the family office of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — is believed to manage tens of bns of USD and has been backing mega-deals around the world, according to a Bloomberg investigation. AC is now looking to get more exposure to defense and infrastructure themes, with the private office of Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalid Al Nahyan set to invest USD 1.13 bn in MidOcean Energy. Sheikh Mohamed’s office has also struck a partnership with EIG to develop energy and infrastructure investments in the UAE and other regional markets, according to a statement.

WATCH THIS SPACE- Gulf sovereign institutions have plenty of appetite for India, where they deployed a combined USD 1.7 bn in 1H 2026 — more than double the USD 700 mn they put there in the first half of last year according to Global SWF data cited by the Economic Times. Global SWF expect AbuDhabi’s Adia and Saudi’s PIF to be among the most active allocating to Indian opportunities.

Speaking of SWFs and infrastructure: Mubadala’s USD 5 bn Brazil port is drawing lots of interest. BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners is the latest to put together a bid for Brazil’s Porto Sudeste — the iron-ore port Mubadala Capital owns with Trafigura, Bloomberg reports. Mubadala Capital is the seller, and GIP arrives at the auction two months after partnering with Abu Dhabi’s L’imad and Singapore’s Temasek on a venture targeting USD 30 bn of infrastructure deals.

Dubai Taxi Company has closed its AED 1.5 bn, debt-funded takeover of National Taxi, making it the UAE’s largest taxi player with a combined fleet above 9.5k after absorbing National Taxi’s 2.7k-plus vehicles. The deal gives DTC a 59% share in Dubai and its first foothold in Abu Dhabi, where it’s positioned for about 12% of the market.

Noon Academy buys Almakhfi as Saudi education M&A accelerates. Noon Academy acquired Almakhfi, a Saudi exam-prep platform for the Qudurat and Tahsili tests, folding its AI-powered content into Noon’s stack, according to a press release.

Why it matters: It’s the latest in a wave of acquisitions rolling up Saudi education assets that also includes Al Masar Al Shamil, which signed a non-binding MoU to acquire 60% of Al Qalam last month. EFG Hermes has deployed more than half its USD 200 mn-plus Saudi Education Fund across six schools in about a year, and Ashmore closed its second school buy in April.

Dar Global is lining up bank debt and a new fund behind a USD 11.5 bn Saudi pipeline. Dar Global is funding a USD 11.5 bn Saudi pipeline with some USD 600 mn of free cash, off-plan proceeds, and a USD 250 mn syndicated term loan from Emirates NBD and FAB struck in April. Its London-listed Dar Al Arkan arm is also buying a DIFC-regulated asset manager for its first fund, first close in September. CEO Ziad El Chaar wants foreign buyers at c. 30% of Saudi sales — USD 1-1.5 bn of interest in for some 350 units — and favors bank lines over sukuk, a bet the ownership opening pays for the pipeline.

AND- A high-profile AI exec in the UAE secretly pled guilty to insider trading last year. Court records unsealed Monday (pdf) in the United States show Arya Bolurfrushan, a former Goldman Sachs banker who founded AppliedAI, the Abu Dhabi startup that does business as Opus — pleaded guilty in June 2025 to conspiring to commit securities fraud in a sprawling US insider-trading case, Reuters reports. AppliedAI announced last year a USD 55 mn funding round that included G42, Bessemer, McKinsey, and Palantir and has recently inked partnerships with McKinsey and EY. Full disclosure: Bolurfrushan appeared in our My Morning Routine column in May of this year.

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