Global asset managers deepen Gulf presence with new offices and bns in commitments

The world’s biggest managers are putting money and people into the region. EQT opened its Middle East platform in ADGM, and BlackRock said it will steer up to USD 100 bn of international deployment here, on top of the USD 30 bn GCC platform GIP already runs with L’Imad, Adnoc, and Temasek. Riyadh is working on the plumbing to take it: The CMA wants underwriters on the hook for unsold shares and banks to verify that orders are backed by real liquidity.

EQT has opened its first Middle East office and wants to deploy from it. The Swedish private-markets group, which manages USD 389 bn, has launched its regional platform out of Abu Dhabi, it said, and expects to build a broader GCC platform over time. EQT will invest across private equity and infrastructure, work more closely with portfolio companies already operating here — Nord Anglia Education, Virtusa, Banking Circle, Nothing, and SAUR — and hunt new transactions in sectors tied to national agendas, including healthcare, education, digital and AI infrastructure, industrials, and the energy transition.

Who’s running it: Jimmy Mahtani (LinkedIn) is GCC chairman on top of chairing India and Southeast Asia for EQT Private Capital. Smiyet Belrhiti (LinkedIn) will lead the Abu Dhabi office.

A Qatari bank wants USD 1 bn sitting next to BlackRock’s. Lesha Bank plans to invest more than USD 1 bn alongside BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) — a fifth of the c. USD 5.3 bn it manages — under an MoU signed at the Qatar Economic Forum, Qatar News Agency reports. It names no assets or timeline.

GIP is building a bench. The pair have co-invested before, and Group CEO Mohammed Ismail Al Emadi calls infrastructure “a strategic priority.” Lesha’s last disclosed infrastructure deal was c. QAR 182 mn (USD 50 mn) in December, a twentieth of the GIP figure. It launched a USD 30 bn GCC and Central Asia platform with L’Imad, Adnoc, and Temasek, and BlackRock said this week it will steer up to USD 100 bn to the Middle East. Lesha’s ticket is small, but it puts a listed bank on a list of state-backed partners.

Saudi Arabia wants underwriters on the hook for IPOs that don’t sell. The Capital Market Authority is proposing an overhaul of listing rules that would make underwriters commit to taking up unsold shares, require banks to verify that orders are backed by real liquidity, and require issuers to disclose forecasts. Public comments are open until 22 October.

Why it matters: The proposals go at book quality rather than book size, and an underwriter obliged to own what it can’t place prices a deal differently. That matters most to the money arriving from outside: Foreign holdings on the exchange reached SAR 461.5 bn at the end of August, after the Kingdom opened its market to all foreign investors in February, and Gulf IPO volumes are at their weakest in years.

PIF is adding fixed income to the list of things it pays outsiders to run. Pimco is set to receive its first allocation from the Public Investment Fund, a Gulf bond mandate of c. USD 500 mn, Bloomberg reports. It would be the manager’s debut mandate from the fund.

MGX is about to take the AI data center trade outside the Americas. The BlackRock and MGX-backed AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) and Australia’s IFM Investors are in exclusive talks to buy Stack Infrastructure’s Asia Pacific portfolio — sites in Tokyo, Osaka, Sydney, Melbourne, and Johor Bahru — in a deal that could value it at USD 20-25 bn, Bloomberg reports. That is a haircut of up to a third on the more than USD 30 bn owner Blue Owl was initially seeking. The buyers want to sign soon, though talks could drag or collapse.

BACKGROUND- MGX, the AI investor set up by Mubadala and G42, is a founding AIP partner alongside BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners and Microsoft. The partnership’s first deal, the USD 40 bn buyout of Aligned Data Centers, closed in July with 51 campuses and more than 6.4 GW operational and planned, concentrated in the US.

Mubadala is closest to a stake in Italy’s turbine maker. State lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) wants to sell 15-35% of Genoa-based gas and steam turbine maker Ansaldo Energia to Gulf investors, and talks with Mubadala are furthest along, Reuters reports, citing two sources it says are in the know. The stake would come as part of a broader agreement to expand Ansaldo’s operations in the Gulf. CDP owns 99.6% through CDP Equity and would keep control even at the top of that range.

Qatar’s 10x-covered auction says more about supply than demand. Investors bid QAR 4 bn for QAR 400 mn of paper on Tuesday, tapping two lines: QAR 250 mn of two-year notes at 4.90% and QAR 150 mn of five-year notes at 5.30%. Bids came in below the QAR 5 bn drawn in July, when it sold five times as much paper, and auction sizes are down from QAR 2.5 bn in February.

The premium is shrinking. The 2028 line has been tapped three times, its yield up from 4.10% in February to 4.90%, while the two-year Treasury rose faster, from 3.43% to 4.71% — compressing Qatar’s spread from c. 67bp to c. 19bp. The rising cost is imported from the Fed: the first auction since QCB matched it with a 25 bps hike on 16 September, lifting the repo rate to 4.35%. Officials have signaled one more before year-end, testing whether the spread holds under 20 bps.

A Dubai shisha maker just raised USD 425 mn in the high-yield market. Air priced senior unsecured notes USD 25 mn above the USD 400 mn it set out to raise earlier this week, Zawya reports. The five-year paper, non-call for two, carries a 7.875% coupon — inside initial thoughts of 8.25-8.5% after books topped USD 850 mn including USD 20 mn of joint lead manager interest, leaving the deal roughly twice covered.

Turkey is working out how to pay back 455.8k trapped investors. Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek is chairing two days of talks that began yesterday on liquidating the 131 funds and repaying investors, Bloomberg reports. One option is pooling the frozen assets to manage repayments, though the plan is early and nobody has settled who would run it.

It is bigger and slower than first thought. Some 455.8k individual investors hold stakes worth c. USD 18 bn, well above the 350k-plus expected earlier, the Capital Markets Board (SPK) said on Wednesday. It has also doubled the liquidating banks’ deadline to six months, citing portfolio structures and market conditions.

The criminal case is widening. Tera Holding Chairman Emre Tezmen was arrested early Wednesday with Pusula Finans Holding Chairman Serdar Turhan and three Tera executives, and prosecutors have opened proceedings against 63 people. The central bank contained the initial run last week.

Abu Dhabi’s Mair Group is buying into Turkish coffee. Mair Group has signed a share purchase agreement for 70% of Eslab, owner of specialty chain Espressolab, according to a company statement (pdf) and a disclosure (pdf) to the ADX. Terms weren’t disclosed. Eslab’s founders and existing shareholders keep the remaining 30% and stay on to support the business, and the deal still needs regulatory approvals.

The EBRD is buying into Egyptian desalination. The bank has approved an equity investment of up to USD 32.1 mn for a minority stake in RWD Investments, the Netherlands-based vehicle that runs 79 desalination plants along Egypt’s coast through subsidiaries of Hassan Allam Utilities, according to a project disclosure.

How it splits: A committed chunk for new B2B plants and upgrades, and an uncommitted tranche tied to three large PPP water projects still in the pipeline. Total project cost is put at USD 92.9 mn, and the disclosure doesn’t name the PPPs.

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