Good afternoon, ladies and gents. We’re marking the midpoint of the week with two things: The war’s reach into our own calendar, and the IMF putting a number on how the AI build-out is being paid for.
Riyadh’s King Khalid International will stay shut until this Saturday, 17 October, and the disruption is starting to trickle elsewhere in the Gulf. Air France has pushed back Dubai flights to the end of the month, alongside delays on its Riyadh services. The Airport Show at DWTC, which closes today, has been noticeably quiet this week, with fewer agreements coming off the floor than usual. Reuters has moved its Reuters NEXT Gulf conference from 21 October to October 2027, citing the need to align with other regional events and build out a fuller program. These event calendar shifts come as Saudi Arabia is looking to press ahead with its own calendar as normal, as its Future Investment Initiative conference is scheduled for later this month.
The IMF has named surging government bond yields the top risk to the financial system, warning of a disorderly spike as record debt, sticky inflation and AI borrowing collide, according to its Global Financial Stability Report. Hyperscalers now account for 10% of global investment-grade bond issuance, up from under 1% in 2024, and that longer-dated paper competes with government bonds for the same investors.
Since 2023, 14 disclosed transactions have channeled some USD 300 bn of equity, mostly from hyperscalers, and USD 650 bn of debt into weaker AI firms, in return for USD 1.4 tn of future revenue commitments. “The equity investments will deplete in value, the debt may be difficult to service,” the fund’s Jason Wu said, calling the combination a “triple whammy.”
Meta is shopping exactly that structure. The company says its Muse Wonder model, out on Monday, has reached the AI “frontier” on “a large amount of compute and investment,” with more spending to come, Mark Zuckerberg told the Financial Times. It is planning “tens of gigawatts this decade” and hired Dina Powell McCormick in January to court governments and sovereign investors as partners. Funds managed by Blue Owl Capital already own 80% of the joint venture behind its USD 27 bn Hyperion data centre, and Meta is one of eight US firms cleared to receive advanced US chips in the UAE. The pockets being courted include the ones in this region. –Salma
Hassan Allam Holding is the latest Egyptian developer to cross the Gulf into Oman. The group’s real estate arm, Grova Developments, signed two agreements with state-owned Oman Tourism Development Company (Omran Group) yesterday to build the first residential development at Madinat Al Irfan — a USD 75 mn neighborhood and a USD 40 mn branded residences project, according to a press release. The USD 115 mn commitment is Grova’s debut in Oman and Omran’s first residential launch at Madinat Al Irfan, a 7 mn sqm masterplan on Muscat’s western edge, slated to eventually house 10k units.
Irfan is one of two centers of gravity in the Omani residential market right now. The project is “establishing itself as Muscat’s premier emerging Central Business District for Grade A commercial and office space,” ahead of upcoming residential launches, Ahmed Al Shuwaikh, sales and investment manager at Hamptons International Oman, tells EnterpriseAM. The other is Sultan Haitham City, the national flagship smart-city urban development. Both projects are feeding the same momentum. “[The projects] have created long-term market confidence and attracted institutional capital, while immediate end-user demand continues to absorb existing stock in established corridors,” Shuwaikh says.
Both are designated as Integrated Tourism Complexes (ITCs) — the main legal route for foreign freehold ownership in Oman, bundled with renewable residency for buyers and their families. But Sultan Haitham runs on a more open regime than standard ITCs, with a September 2025 cabinet decision that lets buyers lock in residency after paying just 30% of a property at prices as low as OMR 50k (USD 130k), pre-completion.
The agreement comes amid a foreign investment surge into Oman’s residential market. Oman is “experiencing a notable influx of foreign and GCC capital, driven by political stability, economic predictability, safe-haven status, and major legal reforms, including the New Real Estate Registration Law, which digitizes title registration and boosts transparency,” Shuwaikh adds. Yields are a key draw, with ITC residential properties averaging 8.75% gross and mixed-use assets reaching 9.75%, he says. Accessible entry prices compared to the regional alternatives are also playing a role — studios at Sultan Haitham launched at OMR 27.8k in 2023 and are now trading around OMR 70k, well below comparable units in Dubai or Riyadh, as we reported last month.
Hassan Allam joins a short list of Egyptian first-movers. Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) and Al Ahly Sabbour got to Oman first. TMG has Jood inside Sultan Haitham City and its coastal Yamal project, while Al Ahly Sabbour has Wadi Zaha, also in Sultan Haitham City. Brokers say the two Egyptian firms have taken the most premium plots so far. “Egyptian developers possess deep, proven expertise in master-planned smart city projects and large-scale community developments. Their business models align directly with the master framework and scale of Sultan Haitham City,” Shuwaikh says.
This comes amid a near absence of GCC developers in these two major urban developments. So far, Saudi developer Retal is the only non-Egyptian developer in Sultan Haitham City or Irfan, with a USD 830 mn mixed-use project spanning 1.3 mn sqm announced in the summer, while no major Emirati developer (such as Emaar, Aldar, or Damac) has entered either development yet.
But don’t read too much into the Egyptian lead, cautions Farzad Salehi, principal at Muscat-based Yaghoobi Real Estate Brokerage. “It does not, in itself, prove that they have cornered the market on prime land or that other regional developers lack interest; every developer has distinct priorities, return-on-investment targets, and commitments elsewhere,” he tells us. “As primary infrastructure is completed and early absorption is demonstrated, major GCC and Emirati developers are likely to enter for subsequent phases and land parcels,” Al Shuwaikh adds.
Growth in the Middle East and North Africa is set to contract 3.8% in 2026 before rebounding next year to an 8.0% clip, as the Gulf war disrupts hydrocarbon production, shipping, and economic activity, according to the IMF’s October 2026 World Economic Outlook (pdf). The Fund cut its 2026 MENA growth forecast by 4.8 percentage points from April, while raising its 2027 projection by 3.1 points.
The IMF updated its forecasts almost at the last minute to reflect higher oil prices, IMF Deputy Director of Research Petya Koeva Brooks said at the WEO press briefing in Bangkok. Risks remain tilted to the downside, particularly for Gulf exporters, where the shock is also spilling into non-oil activity.
What’s driving the downturn? The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted a route that carried around 20 mn barrels of oil daily before the war — roughly a quarter of global maritime oil trade. Infrastructure damage, shipping restrictions, and higher freight and ins. costs have curtailed exports and weighed on tourism and transport.
Refinery outages and damage in the Gulf and Russia have removed an estimated 20% of internationally traded refined oil product supply, leaving prices 70-95% above prewar levels. Diesel and gasoline face particularly severe pressures.
Gulf economies face steep contractions: Oil exporters in the IMF's broader Middle East and Central Asia grouping are expected to shrink 3.8% this year before growing 7.4% in 2027. Higher oil prices are not enough to offset lost production and exports.
Kuwait’s economy is forecast to contract 16.7% in 2026 before rebounding 17.1% next year. Iraq is expected to shrink 16.0% before growing 19.0%, Qatar to contract 15.6% before expanding 18.8%, and Bahrain to shrink 11.3% before recovering 13.9%.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE face smaller contractions of 3.3% and 3.9%, respectively, followed by growth of 7.9% and 7.7% in 2027. Saudi Arabia benefits from alternative oil export routes, although the IMF warned that non-oil activity is also slowing in some Gulf economies.
Elsewhere, Oman (+4.1%), Algeria (+3.8%), and Libya (+3.3%) are expected to grow this year, while Iran is forecast to contract 7.6%, with inflation reaching 78.6%.
Oil importers are holding up better: The IMF forecasts 4.7% growth in both 2026 and 2027 for importers in its broader Middle East and Central Asia grouping, compared with 4.3% in 2025. The Fund had modestly upgraded the outlook, citing resilient domestic demand, remittances, and tourism, despite higher energy and food import bills, IMF Director of Research Silvana Tenreyo said.
Egypt’s growth forecast has been upgraded for both 2026 and 2027, driven by recovering Suez Canal activity and oil-related sectors, the IMF official said at the briefing. The Fund expects growth of 5.1% this year, up from 4.4% in 2025, before slowing to 4.7% in 2027 as the delayed impact of the Gulf conflict weighs on activity. Risks remain tilted to the downside, including from further regional shipping disruptions.
Egyptian inflation is forecast to ease from 20.4% in 2025 to 13.3% this year before rising to 14.8% in 2027. The current account deficit is projected to widen from 4.2% of GDP in 2025 to 4.4% this year and 4.9% next year.
Morocco is expected to grow 4.5% in 2026 and 4.2% in 2027, Jordan 2.7% and 3.1%, and Tunisia 2.4% and 2.0%, respectively.
Hormuz reopening scenarios: The IMF’s baseline assumes reopening will begin in March 2027, with conditions broadly returning to prewar levels by October 2027. This is a forecasting assumption, not a prediction of when the war will end. The Fund assumes average oil prices of USD 95.74 / bbl in 2026 and USD 87.39 in 2027.
What if the conflict drags on? In a downside scenario with hostilities continuing through June 2027 and further infrastructure damage, oil prices reach USD 130 per barrel in late 2026 and early 2027. OPEC production falls 22% below the 2027 baseline. Combined with tighter financing conditions and higher inflation expectations, the scenario would cut global growth by 0.5 percentage points and raise inflation by 1.1 points in 2027.
The global economy’s resilience has limits: Higher production outside the Gulf, inventory drawdowns, alternative supplies, and energy efficiency have cushioned the shock. Without these adjustments, global growth would have been 2.5% rather than the projected 3.1% in 2026, IMF Economic Counsellor Silvana Tenreyro said. But inventories and other buffers are running thin.
AI-related investment and trade have also supported global growth, although the benefits are concentrated in technology supply chains, leaving many energy importers more exposed to the shock.
What does the IMF recommend? Temporary, targeted support for vulnerable households rather than broad subsidies, rebuilding fiscal buffers, and strengthening energy security. Central banks should keep inflation expectations anchored while weighing the impact of higher prices on economic activity.
Saudi rolls out its second mortgage-backed securitization: PIF-owned Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company (SRC) has launched the kingdom’s second residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), bundling mortgages from six lenders worth some SAR 420 mn. That issuance could free some 0.1% of lending liquidity in the Saudi market, by our math.
The issuance is backed with credit ratings fromFitchandMoody’s, unlike the first issuance. Both credit rating agencies gave the securities the highest possible rating on a national scale — a feat that SRC CEO Majeed Al Abduljabbar said would draw more institutional investors into the issuance.
REMEMBER- Saudi markets are now awaiting final securitization rules. Tadawul is now reviewing public comments on drafted amendments for capital market rules that would give securitization and asset-backed issuances their own framework, but it’s not clear when the rules will become final. The Capital Markets Authority’s rules make credit rating mandatory for public asset-backed offerings, and this deal already meets that bar
BACKGROUND- The SRC’s debut RMBS took place last year, but the size of the issuance was not disclosed. The PIF-backed company currently sits on more than SAR 10 bn in mortgages it bought from Rajhi Bank alone, giving it a big portfolio to securitize in tranches as it sees fit.
Why this matters: The SRC-led push to securitize mortgages would help free up much needed liquidity to finance new priorities as the Kingdom recalibrates its gigaproject ambitions and trims public spending. The banking sector’s loan-to-deposit ratio hit 113% at end-2025, and Fitch expects lenders to lean on RMBS to free up some lending capacity from the SAR 726 bn (USD 193.3 bn) currently tied in mortgage books.
Watch next: More securitization issuances are best suited when rates are down, but global central banks, including SAMA, are hiking rates, making pricing mortgage-backed issuances painful for the banks.
Egypt says it will back Riyadh “without any reservation” and is ready to offer any kind of support to Saudi Arabia in its war with the Houthis, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told Bloomberg when asked about the possibility of Egyptian military support. Cairo is also mulling joining the regional Makkah defense agreement, which he said is “under serious consideration from the Egyptian side.”
Two’s company, three’s a crowd? Israel is reportedly looking for a way in with Saudi Arabia, offering to join the campaign against the Houthis, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly using US mediators to ask for Saudi approval, Haaretz reports, citing diplomatic sources. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is unlikely to accept the offer, the Israeli newspaper says.
REMEMBER- The US made its civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia conditional on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and establishing official ties with Tel Aviv. Saudi Arabia previously maintained its refusal to recognize Israel and establish diplomatic relations without an “irreversible and time-bound path” to the creation of a Palestinian state, which the Netanyahu government has ruled out.
Energy facilities remain a central target in the conflict. An Aramco administrative building in Dhahran was targeted yesterday, causing a limited fire but no fatalities or injuries, SPA reports. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition said it had neutralized assets used by the Houthis to conduct military operations, including Al Sabaha fuel depot station in Sanaa, underground fuel depots, and docks used for transporting and unloading fuel in Hodeidah, Sanaa, and Dhamar.
The impact of escalation is increasing: Saudi international inbound and outbound air cargo capacity fell 33% over 72 hours to 7,292 tonnes, down 3,537 tonnes from the same period a week earlier, The Loadstar reports, citing Rotate data. Departures were also canceled, while the General Authority of Civil Aviation extended the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh to complete a safety inspection, according to SPA.
Contract awards in the GCC held steady in 9M 2026, even as 3Q figures showed sharp y-o-y and q-o-q declines, according to Kamco’s GCC Projects Market Update (pdf) estimate. The Gulf awarded contracts worth some USD 204 bn during the period, up slightly from USD 199 bn — a surprising feat given the impact of the war on the region’s economic growth this year.
One explanation for the surprising headline figure could be the lag effect. 3Q, for example, saw contract awards fall 37.2% y-o-y to USD 47.4 bn — the lowest quarterly figure since Kamco began its records some two years ago — as the war’s hit to the region’s energy exports and infrastructure caught up with the pipeline of planned work.
Every GCC country recorded a double-digit y-o-y fall in 3Q, but it’s not all gloomy everywhere. The war is sorting the region’s project markets by who still has the fiscal and corporate muscle to keep awarding — and the composition of what each government is still signing tells you most of what you need to know about where capex is going next.
Saudi Arabia stayed the Gulf’s biggest projects market at USD 24.4 bn in 3Q, down from USD 33.2 bn a year earlier, with 9M awards at USD 73.4 bn versus USD 79.5 bn. Still, construction grew 7.6% y-o-y to USD 9.2 bn, and gas jumped 80.1% to USD 6.9 bn, while oil collapsed to USD 460 mn from USD 3.8 bn, and power fell 83.4% to USD 1.6 bn. Aramco is the shock absorber: the national champion has earmarked USD 50-55 bn for 2026 investment, 65-70% of it in oil and gas, and has already spent USD 12.3 bn on upstream contracts this year, the largest chunk on the Dorra gas field.
The UAE gained share even as it fell. Awards were down 25.8% y-o-y to USD 15.6 bn, but the Emirates’ share of the GCC total rose to 33% from 27.9% as other markets’ award rates fell faster, Kamco said. Adnoc led the pack on awards in 3Q, accounting for nearly 40% of UAE awards at USD 6.2 bn, led by a USD 1 bn contract on the Umm Shaif gas and surface pressure boosting project as part of USD 6.2 bn committed by Adnoc and its foreign partners. Unlike Saudi, construction went the other way, collapsing 67% y-o-y to USD 5 bn from USD 15.1 bn. The real-estate build-out that drove UAE awards through 2024 and 2025 is no longer carrying the market; hydrocarbon infrastructure did.
Qatar is a one-sector story. Awards fell 62.6% y-o-y to USD 5.2 bn, with four of eight sectors — chemicals, gas, industrial, and power — showing zero in 3Q. Oil alone accounted for USD 5 bn, followed by just USD 137 mn in construction. The q-o-q number was more encouraging in 3Q, rebounding via a 76.1% growth from 2Q.
Kuwait and Oman are the markets without a cushion. Kuwait’s awards fell 57.3% to USD 1.9 bn, more than half of it is concentrated in two projects: A USD 445 mn Subiya power and desalination gas-turbines contract and a USD 379 mn gas separation facility in North Kuwait. Oman nearly disappeared, with awards down 96.6% y-o-y to USD 76 mn.
Debt is costing more in the region, and issuers are looking outside the usual USD playbook for it. UAE banks are advertising up to 5.6% on new deposits as credit growth outruns deposits and the monetary base sits c. 13.5% below where it was when the war began. Emirates Islamic is marketing a sukuk 20 bps wider than its last, FAB has printed in AED, Mashreq is testing offshore RMB, and Amman is raising JOD 400 mn in Jordan’s first municipal sukuk.
MNT-Halan’s private placement closed 11.2x oversubscribed, with foreign institutions taking most of the book. More than 300 investors across more than 10 countries — multiple GCC states, the UK, France, Switzerland, South Africa, and Egypt — bid for the 272 mn shares on offer at EGP 24.5, according to a statement seen by EnterpriseAM.
SOUND SMART- Excluding cornerstones CIB and London’s Redwheel, which were allocated more than a third of the base offering between them, the institutional book was more than 19x covered.
Why it matters: MNT and Banque du Caire are the two most interesting IPOs Egypt has put up in more than a decade. If this one works, it re-opens the window and marks us as a stable destination for equity investors who have given us the cold shoulder for most of 15 years.
It held through a bad weekend. A Houthi attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killed 13 and injured more than 300 — the kind of thing that historically sends foreign money to the exit and costs bankers their nerve. That MNT and BdC were in the market at all during a hot war in the Gulf was already striking. Retail subscriptions close tomorrow, and trading starts 20 October.
UAE banks are paying up for deposits as lending outruns funding. FAB is offering 5.6% on new savings deposits through December, up from 4% in its last campaign, and Emirates NBD as much as 5.5% on some larger new deposits, Bloomberg reports, citing advertised offers and Central Bank of the UAE data. Credit grew 18.1% y-o-y in 2Q against roughly 14% for deposits, taking the loan-to-deposit ratio above 80% from 77.7% in 2025. In February, UAE lenders were sitting on comfortable loan-to-deposit ratios. By June, analysts were warning that liquidity pressure was building. Public-sector borrowing for infrastructure, including the “Zero Hormuz” push to bypass the strait, is keeping credit demand strong.
What tightened: The monetary base has fallen c. 13.5% since the war began, Jefferies’ Naresh Bilandani estimates. Liquidity support the central bank introduced early in the war expired in September, and banks that tapped it now have to repay, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Edmond Christou says. Gulf money has also gone into an Indian program for non-resident USD deposits that raised c. USD 130 bn.
Margins are the next read: Lenders are paying a liquidity premium for fresh deposits, Bloomberg Intelligence says, which narrows spreads unless loan pricing keeps up.
Emirates Islamic drew more than USD 1.2 bn of orders on a USD 500 mn sukuk in a day. Books opened yesterday on the five-year, and demand excluding lead managers already matches its last offering’s full book, Zawya reports, citing IFR data. Initial guidance is 115bp over US Treasuries. The Fitch-rated A+ lender is issuing fixed-rate, senior unsecured notes under its USD 4 bn certificate issuance program.
REMEMBER- It raised USD 500 mn through a sustainability-linked sukuk in September 2025, priced at 4.54%, or 95bp over Treasuries, on USD 1.2 bn of orders. Initial guidance is 20 bps wider than where that priced, though guidance usually tightens as books build. The backdrop is tougher: Gulf bond and sukuk issuance fell 17.5% in 3Q as higher borrowing costs bit.
ADVISORS- Our friends at Mashreq are joined by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Arab Bank, Citi, Emirates NBD Capital, ICBC, KFH Capital, and Standard Chartered as joint lead managers and bookrunners.
Two of the UAE’s biggest lenders are going around the USD this week. FAB has priced its first benchmark-sized, digitally native green bond in AED rather than USD, Zawya reports. The three-year notes came at 75 bps over the three-year AED swap rate and settle tomorrow, with size and coupon still undisclosed. The Reg S notes are expected to list on the ADX, rated Aa3/AA-/AA- in line with FAB’s issuer ratings. Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC, ICBC (Asia), and Standard Chartered ran the books alongside FAB.
Why it matters: Gulf bank green paper is almost always printed in USD and listed offshore. A benchmark-sized AED green bond listed at home adds depth to a domestic market that has so far been thin and sets a reference point on the local swap curve.
Mashreq is going east instead. Our friends at Mashreq have mandated banks for investor calls on a three-year Dim Sum bond, Zawya reports separately, citing IFR, with arrangers, size, and guidance all unannounced. Gulf issuers have dipped into offshore renminbi since Emirates NBD became one of the region’s first last December, and a firmer CNH has moved the market from niche channel toward mainstream option.
Amman is about to become the first city in Jordan to borrow directly. Cabinet approved a JOD 400 mn (USD 564.2 mn) five-year sukuk for the Greater Amman Municipality on Sunday, paying 5.5% a year under a lease-to-own ijara structure and tradable on the Amman Stock Exchange. It is the first tranche of a program worth up to JOD 1 bn, managed by the Central Bank of Jordan and aimed at banks, insurers, and savings, investment, and pension funds. The prospectus is due within days, and two JOD 300 mn tranches are expected to follow.
The pitch is cheaper money. Proceeds will restructure the municipality’s budget and fund new infrastructure at a lower cost, saving the city about JOD 70 mn over five years on the government’s estimate, or JOD 140 mn over 10.
This isn’t the first municipal debt issuance in the region. Agadir issued Morocco’s first municipal bond in 2022, and the Casablanca-Settat region followed in April 2026, both with EBRD-anchored MAD 1 bn deals and come as the country push for municipalities to take on localized debt to finance World Cup 2030 infrastructure.
Adnoc L&S is in talks for a stake in an Abu Dhabi offshore services firm at up to USD 3 bn. The stake in HEA Energy could be a minority or a controlling one, and the talks could still fall through, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people it says are familiar with the matter. Founded in 2022, HEA runs self-elevating barges for offshore wind and oil and gas maintenance, and its revenue more than doubled this year to about USD 100 mn.
It would extend a buying pattern. Adnoc L&S’ acquisition of Zakher Marine in 2022 added 24 jack-up barges and 38 offshore support vessels on undisclosed terms, and in January 2025 it closed a USD 1.04 bn purchase of 80% of Navig8, adding 32 tankers and widening its international footprint.
A water management firm is building a tokenized water market out of Dubai.AquaIndex, working with the Dubai Multi Commodities Center, expects its platform to go live in 4Q 2026 with an initial pool of up to 11 bn barrels drawn from a regulated US aquifer and valued at c. USD 5 bn, or about USD 0.45 a barrel.
How it works. Each token is a blockchain-recorded receipt for a set volume of water held at a certified reservoir. Holders can sell on the platform or swap the token for physical water at designated stations, AquaIndex says.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING
Kuwait’s Al Mazaya Holding wants off the DFM. The real estate company’s board has recommended delisting from Dubai and consolidating onto its home exchange, subject to shareholder approval at the general assembly, according to a company disclosure (pdf).
Syrian healthtech Alo Hakeem has raised a USD 165k pre-seed led by EBLA Ventures, Wamda reports.
Morocco has a new government: Prime Minister-select Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri has sealed a coalition agreement with three partners — Istiqlal, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, and the Progress and Socialism Party — handing her centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) a working majority in the 395-seat parliament, state news agency MAP reported. El Mansouri is now set to send a cabinet list to the king for approval before facing parliament with a policy program.
El Mansouri is up against some challenges: Morocco is one of the region’s growth stories, with the IMF projecting 4.6% expansion in 2026, well ahead of a broader MENA region which is set to contract at about 2%. But headline unemployment is at 12.2% and youth joblessness is near 27%, the same pressures that drove last year’s Gen Z protests and July’s Ceuta migration crisis. El Mansouri also inherits the final stretch of a USD 20 bn infrastructure push for the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco co-hosts with Spain and Portugal.
The backstory: PAM, founded in 2008 by a senior adviser to King Mohammed VI as a secular counterweight to the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), won the 23 September legislative vote and displaced the National Rally of Independents (RNI) at the top of the coalition. The king tapped El Mansouri — a lawyer, Marrakech mayor, and former housing minister — last month, succeeding b’naire businessman Aziz Akhannouch, who led the outgoing coalition government from 2021.
Sawiris-backed fintech firmKlivvris targeting a roughly 160% jump in its financing portfolio next year to as much as EGP 6.5 bn (USD 122.7 mn), up from more than EGP 2.5 bn (USD 47.2 mn) disbursed in its first 12 months, Asharq Business reports, citing CEO Nils Bachtler. The current portfolio sits at EGP 2.4-2.5 bn, with banks and factoring companies providing around 95% of its funding. Klivvr plans to double its merchant network to more than 2k from around 1k within 12 months and is weighing SME financing — targeting EGP 2-3 bn in its first year — while applying for the needed licenses.
The growth target lands in a sector that regulators are pulling back on. Klivvr draws about 95% of its funding from banks and factoring companies, the very channel the central bank is now restricting (banks are barred from lending to non-bank lenders that aren’t registered with the central bank and reporting to I-Score). The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has pushed through its own data rules, requiring consumer finance firms to report each approval, disbursement, and repayment to I-Score in real time and to link their databases to the regulator’s own. Klivvr is a relative newcomer: The FRA cleared its consumer finance arm in December 2024, and the Sawiris family’s Klivvr Holding bought Orascom Financial Holding’s 99% stake in Klivvr Electronics for EGP 657.7 mn in January 2025.
Working the Africa corridor
After Angola, Oman is turning east in the African Continent. The Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed an MoU with the Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Muscat on Monday, data-sharing, trade delegations, and joint exhibitions. The signing took place on the sidelines of the second iteration of the Oman-East Africa Trade and Investment Exhibition last week.
REMEMBER- Oman launched an Angola-based bank to back investments in the continent with a EUR 17 mn capital at its inception. The bank has begun its push by pledging to explore investments and financing for projects in the up and coming Angolan freezone, Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone.
The bilateral pitch: Besides Omani oil exports, Uganda can benefit from Oman’s maritime and trade links to expand its core export product: food crops. And for Oman, the private sector is looking into opportunities in agriculture, food processing, tourism, and mining. At the moment, Omani exporters dominate the bilateral trade, with Oman sending USD 247 mn of goods to Uganda in 2024, about 90% of it fuel and Uganda exporting just USD 5.5 mn to Oman in the same year. UNCCI director Alpha Karamagi Charles flagged coffee, gold, and fresh fruit, including mangoes and avocados, as products to sell into the sultanate.
Another one
Emirati state defense firm Edge is doubling down on its Brazilian ties after inking an agreement with both the UAE Defense Ministry and the Brazilian Army to expand military cooperation, according to a statement.
Inside the agreement: The agreement includes joint initiatives across military, technological, industrial, commercial, and governmental activities. More specifically, it will focus on solutions that the Brazilian Army can use to strengthen its military industry base.
One hurdle down, another one to go for OCI’s merger with ADX-listed Orascom Construction: The Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has thrown out a petition from Dutch retail investor association VEB and shareholder Smits that sought an inquiry into OCI Global, Amsterdam-listed OCI Global said in a statement (pdf) earlier this month. The ruling removes one legal obstacle ahead of OCI’s shareholder vote on 30 October, though it doesn’t touch a separate petition Dutch investment company Value8 filed with the same court last month.
ICYMI- Egyptian bn’aire Nassef Sawiris controls both fertilizers producer OCI and ADX- and EGX-listed Orascom Construction (Oras), and wants to fold them together into an Abu Dhabi-based infrastructure platform. Oras holders have already approved the merger, in which OCI holders would get 0.4634 ORAS shares for every OCI share. But the merger hit a wall over Sawiris’ position on both sides of the transaction, and the Dutch court appointed independent directors to settle the conflict of interest. The Dutch court was also concerned that OCI’s minority shareholders would be left holding Abu Dhabi-listed shares that most Dutch brokers can’t trade, with no option to cash out. That’s where NNS Holding came in. The Cyprus-incorporated arm of Sawiris’ family office is offering EUR 4.10 in cash for every OCI share, giving investors an alternative to the merger. But the merger can’t be completed until NNS has made the offer, declared it unconditional, and settled it — a condition the court-appointed directors attached at a shareholders’ meeting (pdf) in July. The deadline to accept the offer is 17 November, and NNS can extend it once by up to 10 weeks.
Late to the party?
Oman’s equivalent of the ADGM and DIFC is coming online soon. The International Financial Centre of Oman (IFC Oman) will start registering companies by end-2026 and open full licensing in 2027, board chair Mahmood Al Aweini said, pushing back the initial goal of full operational launch this year. Still missing is some legal infrastructure: laws on licensing, executive regulations, and dispute resolution systems, are still due.
That hasn’t stopped the marketing push, and it points east. IFC Oman has courted investors at Hong Kong’s Belt and Road Summit, a showcase for Chinese capital, and at Astana Finance Days, run by Central Asia’s own common-law hub. Next up is global finance houses at the IMF-World Bank meetings in Bangkok.
The tax terms look competitive, at least on paper. The founding decree offers incentives for up to 50 years, exempting income from eligible activities, as well as for IFC-linked earnings, including for non-Omanis, according to a note by KPMG. That would spare them Oman’s 5% personal income tax, due in 2028, but the eligible activities and conditions still await executive regulations, KPMG notes.
Established rivals had a busy 2026 despite the volatility: ADGM ended 1H 2026 with nearly 14k active licences and assets under management (AUM) up 54% y-o-y, while the DIFC counted 10k active companies — both growing through the US-Iran war. Istanbul, whose financial centre opened in 2023, also extended its headline tax break as part of a wider incentives package expanding eligible sectors earlier this year.
The settlement that wasn’t
Mubadala sees UAE-UK investments as separate from Man City saga: It’s good news for UAE-UK investment ties as a Mubadala Investment Company exec says the recent ruling against Manchester City won’t hamper investments bound for the UK, Bloomberg reports, citing Deputy Group CEO Waleed Al Muhairi. The football club, which is owned by one of Abu Dhabi’s most senior royals, has filed an appeal against the verdict.
IN CONTEXT- Some feared the case would put pressure on UAE-UK ties that have been improving following a strained period in the wake of the Telegraph saga. The Emirates has been vocal about its desire for a specific UAE-UK trade agreement that’s separate from the GCC’s. The two countries also agreed in April on a new cooperation framework spanning defense, trade and investment, AI, and energy transition.
Could the entire situation have been averted? Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City held early-stage settlement talks with the Premier League before it was found guilty of breaching financial rules, but talks quickly broke down as the club insisted on its innocence, Bloomberg reports, citing people in the know. Given the scale of the case, a settlement likely would have reduced the penalties rather than eliminated them.
ICYMI- A Premier League-appointed commission ruled late last month that the club had inflated its revenue with disguised funding from Abu Dhabi to get around financial rules. City faces a points deduction, a heavy fine, or expulsion from the league. It has appealed, and a verdict is due by early February.
Barrels for roads
Iraq is working on paying Turkish contractors in oil for the USD 17 bn Development Road. Baghdad’sTransport Ministry said it’s setting up an oil-backed fund with Turkey that would pay Turkish companies to build the corridor in exchange for crude, INA reports. The project is still in design, with work planned in three phases running to 2050. Of the USD 17 bn, USD 6.5 bn goes to the highway and USD 10.5 bn to an electric railway, with the phases targeting 2028, 2033, and 2050, AGBI reported.
A World Bank loan covers the first phase: It upgrades existing rail lines from Baghdad to Basra and Umm Qasr in the south and to Mosul in the north, with connections to Al-Faw Port and the Turkish border at Fishkhabur. The bank approved USD 930 mn to modernize more than 1k km of the network.
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