Good afternoon friends, and happy hump day. The season’s events calendar is back in question in some corners, as the Red Sea Film Foundation canceled this year’s edition of its international film festival. The event will return to Historic Jeddah in 4Q 2027 at a yet-to-be-determined date. The announcement — which did not mention the ongoing war — attributed the decision to a review of the timing and extensive logistical needs required for an event of this scale.
In Dubai, some big events are also on pause as the emirate observes 10 days of mourning for Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, brother of Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, who died on Monday at 75. Flags are at half-mast, live entertainment is off, and official gatherings are being pushed back through to the end of next week.
Up the highway: First Abu Dhabi Bank was named in a Financial Times investigation into how a Kremlin-backed fintech moved USD 6.9 bn past sanctions checks. A7 — a fintech player that provides cross-border payments, backed by the sanctioned Russian state bank Promsvyazbank — has been using forged invoices to defeat the sanctions compliance checks major banks run on their customers.
Who carried the transactions? Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong accounts alone received USD 1.1 bn from A7-linked entities; Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan also processed A7-linked payments, while First Abu Dhabi Bank held accounts for 17 A7 entities that sent over USD 1.8 bn outbound. Just over half the flows ultimately landed in China, with some payments traced to Russian military hardware and security-service purchases.
OpenAI wants Washington leading on AI rules days beforeSam Altman briefs the UN Security Councilon AI risk. In a Monday blog post, the company called on the US to lead an international push for technical standards on frontier AI, including recursive self-improvement (RSI) — the point where models start upgrading themselves. Fully autonomous RSI “is not happening today,” OpenAI said, and shouldn’t until it can be done safely.
Separately, the US is pitching to China a “notification mechanism” on AI security incidents ahead of the Trump-Xi summit tomorrow. However, sources familiar with the matter told Politico that the pitch is much more rudimentary than the name suggests, with one source describing it more as an open communication channel between US Treasury Secretary Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng, rather than “a formal body of experts.”
IN CONTEXT- The US almost attacked a Chinese vessel a few months ago based on AI hallucinations.CNN reported earlier this week that the US came so close to intercepting a Chinese vessel in the region after an AI-generated intelligence report falsely flagged the vessel as transporting components for a nuclear program to an unidentified country.
There’s no reason to believe that a global “notification mechanism” for AI would emerge, given the intense geopolitical nature of the AI race between China and the US. And the global track record on similar efforts is dismal — several efforts to create a global notification mechanism on cybersecurity incidents have failed in delivering a system, leaving the effort to a set of domestic, bilateral, and multilateral frameworks along geopolitical lines. –Salma
Oman is trying to scale a tourism model built around what differentiates it from the Gulf’s bigger destinations: Nature, heritage, adventure, and lower-density development rather than high-volume urban and resort tourism.
That model is now shaping the country’s investment pipeline. The Sultanate is lining up OMR bns in tourism, hospitality, and mixed-use projects across Muscat, Duqm, and Dhofar, while expanding the international marketing and air links intended to support demand to fill them. But the first half of this year has already tested that strategy, as hotel guest numbers and occupancy fell even as the supply kept developing.
“The country is pursuing a more differentiated approach centred on economic diversification, nature, heritage, adventure and lower-density development,” Siraj Ahmed, director of strategy and consulting at GCC property consultancy Cavendish Maxwell, tells EnterpriseAM. “In terms of product, there is interest in projects aligned with Oman’s natural and cultural positioning, including resort, wellness, nature-led and mixed-use developments. The market is less suited to simply replicating the high-density hospitality models seen elsewhere in the region.”
The investment pipeline reflects that approach across three primary hubs. In Muscat, a OMR 230 mn (USD 598.2 mn) integrated tourism complex in Al Qurum is being developed in phases over 15 years, including two four-star hotels and more than 400 hotel units alongside residential, retail, and recreational facilities. In Duqm, a 31 sq km waterfront master plan includes more than 2,600 hotel and hospitality units by 2040, over 3,700 residential units, and 63,000 sq m of commercial space. In Dhofar, five investment opportunities worth around OMR 1.95 bn (USD 5.07 bn) have been put forward, including the roughly OMR 1.9 bn (USD 4.94 bn) Future Salalah City.
“They have been much more active and present at international tourism exhibitions, and they have also targeted tourism professionals in the region and gathered them at B2B events inside Oman,” says Aline Ghanem, co-founder of Exclusive Services Group, a destination management company based in Beirut and Dubai. “They targeted Indian wedding planners, leisure travel professionals, and took people on tours to Jebel Akhdar, Salalah, Nizwa. They have understood their product and are engaging with the professionals that can sell it, whether as leisure, corporate, or a luxury wedding destination.”
That work has also expanded the range of target markets. “If things are calm for us in the region and if they keep their marketing strategy, Oman can become a hub for the European market,” Ghanem tells EnterpriseAM. “The authenticity of the experience appeals very much to French, Spanish, German, and Italian tourists. They also want Gulf tourists. They are going after Saudis, Emiratis, Bahrainis, and want to promote domestic travel among Omanis.”
The Nordic market shows how that strategy translates into business on the ground. Tom Egill, co-owner of Arabian Wonders and IWANNAGO, two Oman-based startups specializing in destination management and tourism services, says his company is expanding beyond its original Norwegian customer base.“We are growing very fast, and that is only with the Nordic markets,” Egill tells us. “Our Omani team helps build authentic excursions that appeal to Nordic travelers … Things you can’t pull out of a brochure like eating dinner in the traditional Omani way, visiting the homes of the Omani guides, or attending a breadmaking class.”
For those travelers, Oman occupies a different position from the Gulf’s major urban destinations. “The Nordic clients see Oman as something closer to East Africa than to the Gulf,” Egill says. That positioning gives Oman a distinct pool of international demand to develop, but scaling it requires physical access alongside marketing and product development.
Omanlauncheddirect routes to Singapore, Sochi, and Medan in July and is pursuing additional priority markets under its National Aviation Strategy 2040. The approach is a long-cycle effort to build supply and demand together, Center for Aviation (CAPA) head of analysis Richard Maslen tells EnterpriseAM.
“I would describe it as a deliberate forward-looking strategy rather than a response to fully developed demand,” says Maslen. “Oman is building the tourism product and the air connectivity at the same time, with the expectation that each will stimulate the other.”
There is already a substantial tourism market to build on. Oman received around 1.8 mn inbound visitors in 1H 2026, broadly maintaining the previous year’s level despite regional travel disruption. Hotel demand, however, weakened during the same period: Three- to five-star hotel guest numbers fell 13% y-o-y, occupancy dropped to 8.3 percentage points to 46.3%, and hotel revenue fell 12.3%, according to NCSI figures.
By comparison, the regional picture looks weaker. Hotel occupancy declined 30.3% y-o-y in Dubai and 15.3% in Qatar during 1H 2026, compared with 15.1% in Oman and 2.7% in Saudi Arabia, according to Cavendish Maxwell data. Oman’s average daily rate increased 2.6%, while Dubai and Qatar recorded declines.
Maslen says the 2026 figures should be viewed in the context of a tourism strategy that is still being built. “The caution is that the 2026 numbers do not yet demonstrate a broad-based demand surge,” he says. “But I would not interpret that as evidence that the strategy is failing. Tourism is a long-cycle investment. Oman is trying to move from being a relatively niche destination to a much larger international tourism market, and that requires putting the capacity in place before the demand fully materializes.”
That capacity is arriving quickly. Oman added around 430 hotel keys in 1Q 2026, with another 1,200 expected by year-end, taking total supply to about 41.4k keys, according to Cavendish Maxwell. A further 2,700 keys are planned over the following two years.
“From a real estate perspective, the lower-density approach can support investment at scale, provided supply is phased in line with actual demand,” Ahmed says. “The focus on master planning, infrastructure, coordination and government-led feasibility assessment provides greater control over the timing and nature of development.”
Dhofar is where that timing is hardest to manage. More than 881k visitors arrived during the 2026 Khareef season between June 21 and August 15, with arrivals by air up 13.6%, but demand outside those weeks remains thin.
“Extending the Salalah tourism season is an important factor in strengthening the investment case for Dhofar,” Ahmed says. “The current concentration of demand around Khareef creates a degree of seasonality that needs to be addressed for hospitality and tourism assets to achieve more consistent annual performance. The broader strategy is therefore to build demand around cultural, sporting, heritage, nature and leisure activities outside the traditional peak period.”
Connectivity could help extend that season. Egill notes that a direct flight from Scandinavia to Salalah, combined with targeted marketing, could unlock another market for the southern destination. “If there were direct flights to Salalah, with the right marketing, more Scandinavians would be willing to visit because they are used to taking long flights to visit places like East Africa or the Gran Canaria,” he says.
For investors, the underlying calculation remains specific to each destination. “The investment case for large-scale tourism projects ultimately comes down to commercial fundamentals rather than the destination proposition alone,” Ahmed says. “Key considerations include the depth and seasonality of demand, accessibility, operator and brand positioning, development costs, achievable room rates, utilisation and the timing of competing supply. Muscat, Dhofar and Duqm serve different demand profiles and should not necessarily be assessed using the same assumptions.”
Diplomacy is slowly moving to untangle the US-Iran gridlock, as global leaders gather in New York City for the UN General Assembly meetings. A senior Iranian official tells Reuters that Tehran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf shipping within seven days if Washington eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports, a proposal conveyed through mediators last week.
The possibility of “annihilating” Iran is still on US President Donald Trump’s mind, saying in New York that he has “a big decision to make.” Meeting with Middle Eastern leaders later, he suggested the “situation with Iran could end right after the midterm elections.” US midterms happen in November. Iran’s Armed Forces dismissed the speech as “propaganda,” saying their response is “full readiness to inflict more severe, crushing, and unpredictable blows on the aggressors.”
Talks are running anyway, with US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff saying that the US and Iran held lengthy discussions on the UNGA sidelines yesterday through mediators. Doha, meanwhile, put forth a proposal for a common security framework covering Iran and the Gulf states during a meeting of Gulf leaders with Trump. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said any such arrangement would need to carry security guarantees for the Gulf and expand economic interdependence with Iran.
On the Saudi front…
After two weeks of Riyadh’s requests for outside military help going unanswered, Saudi Arabia now has a limited yes from London, a French offer to help secure Yanbu and the East-West pipeline corridor, and from Washington a strike package that was loaded onto aircraft and then canceled. The Houthis had already said they would treat any country joining the Kingdom as a combatant.
US President Donald Trump had prepared to launch strikes on the Houthis earlier this week, but called them off at the last minute, the New York Times reported. Trump is under pressure to back Riyadh while trying not to widen the war he launched alongside Israel in February, which is unpopular at home heading into November’s midterms.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham agreed to provide Saudi Arabia with air-to-air refueling to support defensive operations against Houthi attacks, Bloomberg reports. The support begins within days and is slated to run for several weeks, although Burnham said he had agreed to the Saudi request for a limited time. The UK will also lobby international allies to bolster the Kingdom’s defense, unnamed sources tell Bloomberg.
Paris is offering to cover the export infrastructure: A French diplomatic source tells Reuters that Paris is ready to contribute to securing Saudi energy infrastructure at Yanbu and along the East-West pipeline corridor, Reuters reports. These are the two links carrying what is left of the Kingdom’s Red Sea export route.
The Houthis warned off the joiners before any of them arrived. Mohamed Al Boukhati, a member of the group’s political bureau, told the Associated Press that the group has no intention of targeting US cargoes or those of any country other than Saudi Arabia (watch, runtime: 1:15). That’s in line with what the group told US officials in Oman. Al Boukhati cast the campaign against the Kingdom as retaliation for Riyadh’s attempts to open internal Yemeni fronts against the Houthis.
No signs of backing down: The group is fighting on three fronts — Bab Al Mandab, the regional fight against Saudi Arabia, and Yemen’s internal conflict — and has no intention of retreating, Al Boukhati said.
Until this week, the outside involvement was limited to mediation. China and Pakistan had made the only efforts by external powers in the Saudi-Houthi fight after Riyadh asked Washington for military support and was offered intelligence-sharing and targeting support instead.
Qatar wants to target USD 61 bn of investments domestically over five years. The investments will be mobilized by Doha Investment, the sovereign domestic platform Qatar announced on Sunday, with USD 38.5 bn aimed at new infrastructure projects and a separate USD 22.5 bn in private capital targeted at real estate and hospitality, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said during his Qatar Economic Forum keynote in New York.
The portfolio has scale to build on.Doha Investment’s 45 companies span financial services, transport, telecoms, real estate, hospitality, food and agriculture, and reach more than 80 markets; more than 20 of them each booked revenues above QAR 1 bn in 2025. Priority build-out sectors are advanced technology, manufacturing, supply chain and healthcare — with a national AI platform, Qai, already in the mix.
The pattern: Gulf sovereign funds keep splitting off domestic-transformation vehicles. Doha Investment is the second GCC carve-out of a domestic-focused vehicle from a larger sovereign fund this year after the UAE’s ADQ rolled out L’Imad and consolidated its domestic portfolio underneath it. It also follows PIF’s move to center its 2026-2030 strategy on the same axis: private capital for domestic investments. With a self-proclaimed mandate to attract private capital, build new industries and grow national champions, Doha Investments puts QIA squarely inside the domestic-international split that SWF experts previously flagged to us is becoming the region’s template architecture.
What to watch: The first company Doha Investment names for a QSE listing, and where the USD 38.5 bn infrastructure envelope secures its earliest PPP participants. The QEF returns to Doha in April 2027, and it would be natural to expect some related announcements by then.
Oman’s economy grew 3.8% y-o-y in real terms in 1H 2026 to OMR 19.5 bn (USD 51 bn) — but almost all of the growth was oil. Oil’s share of GDP climbed to 35% in 2Q, up from 32% a year earlier, while the non-oil economy’s share slipped from 43% to 41%, according to the National Center for Statistical Information’s latest monthly bulletin. Oil output rose 9.7% in 1H, while the non-oil economy expanded at just 1.3%. Higher crude prices did the heavy lifting — Oman’s export price averaged USD 83.3/bbl for the year through August, up 15.5% y-o-y.
The breakdown shows where the pain is concentrated: Construction’s share of GDP slipped from 8% to 7% as the sector contracted 3.2%, while hospitality and food contracted 3.3% on the back of reduced hotel revenues (11%) as westerners halted travel to the country. The surprising data point, however, was transport and storage, which shrank by 1.9% — despite Oman being a critical node in keeping trade flows to and from the rest of the GCC during Hormuz disruptions.
The one standout was financial and ins. services, which grew 9.5% — the fastest of any non-oil sector, and now 6% of GDP.
FDI was also another casualty, and it shows the same oil dependency: Net inflows fell 44% y-o-y to OMR 1.9 bn (USD 4.94 bn) in 1H, and 72% went to oil and gas. The UK stayed the dominant source at OMR 1 bn (USD 2.6 bn).
Domestic capital, meanwhile, is chasing paper and property: The MSX30 was up 51% y-o-y through August, and residential real estate prices climbed 25% in 2Q.
Still, Oman seems to be investing its way through the crisis: Spending rose 6%, with investment accounting for the fastest-growing component at 16%. That was the main driver behind the OMR 17 mn (USD 44.2 mn) budget deficit during 1H, despite revenues going up 13% to OMR 6.6 bn (17.2 bn) on the oil price windfall.
Washington is offering to help rebuild what its war broke: The US is pitching to seed a USD 5 bn reconstruction fund to rebuild the region’s energy infrastructure damaged during the Iran war, run through the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Bloomberg reports, citing a DFC document it has seen. Eight partners from the region are being asked to match: The US wants Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, and Jordan to double the vehicle to USD 10 bn under the working name Partnership for Allied Construction and Trust, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The plan targets four things: Routes around the Strait of Hormuz, restoring energy exports, hardening sites against future strikes, and rebuilding domestic infrastructure. Nothing is signed, and terms could still shift.
But not everyone’s convinced: Geopolitical analysts are flagging some problems with the pitch. Chatham House fellow and Managing Director of geopolitical consulting firm Trends US Bilal Saab told the journal the approach is “risk-laden,” while Umer Karim of the University of Birmingham warned it could “leave smaller Gulf producers more, not less, dependent on the US.” And Qatar has been more pessimistic on the Hormuz bypass push, with Energy Minister and QatarEnergy CEO Saad Al Kaabi saying earlier this week that Hormuz “will never be obsolete,” as he pushed back directly on US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claim that the waterway will be “worthless in two years.” Doha, notably, isn’t planning any bypass pipelines in the strait that carried about a fifth of global LNG trade in 2024, almost all of it Qatari and Emirati. You can’t exactly reroute everything around Hormuz: The crisis around the strait could delay some of QatarEnergy's expansion projects because critical equipment is struggling to reach Qatar, Reuters quotes Al Kaabi as saying. The warning reaches into a North Field expansion aiming to nearly double Qatar's roughly 77 mtpa capacity to 142 mtpa — North Field East’s first train is due online in the first half of 2027, with the rest of its trains slated for later that year, while North Field South isn’t scheduled to begin production until 2028. In perspective: Some machinery and equipment required for setting up LNG plants are too heavy and tall to be routed in cargo planes, and hauling them by land over long distances is a logistical nightmare.
That’s why Qatar’s redundancy plan isn’t more pipelines. It is US LNG: The company is already in talks with US suppliers including Venture Global, Cheniere, and Woodside Energy for around 2-3 mn tons of LNG annually through 2031 to help cover customer commitments, while rare Hormuz crossings and ship-to-ship transfers outside the strait have kept some Qatari volumes moving.
On production: Al Kaabi said QatarEnergy is currently producing only a “very minute” volume of LNG. Two of Ras Laffan’s 14 LNG trains have also been offline since Iranian strikes earlier this year, removing around 12.8 mtpa of capacity for an expected three-to-five years, while constrained Hormuz crossings have made moving the remaining output harder.
Meanwhile, Saudi and UAE are shopping for consultants for their planned pipeline workarounds, and Indian state-run Engineers India (EIL) is a top candidate. The Indian company is reportedly in early-stage talks with Saudi and the UAE for consultancy and engineering mandates as the two countries look to cut their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. The Gulf producers are planning about USD 1 bn in pipelines, storage facilities, and export terminals to build out alternative routes for crude and petroleum products — and EIL wants a piece of the design and feasibility work that comes with it, The Hindu reports.
For now, existing workarounds are on the mend: Saudi Arabia aims to restore about half the East-West pipeline’s capacity within days following recent drone strikes, with full repairs possibly taking five to six weeks. And Iraq began trucking crude oil from its southern oilfields to keep its Turkey-bound northern export routes supplied, after wrapping a two-day pilot that moved c. 38k barrels aboard 209 tanker trucks. Limited truck availability and constrained loading infrastructure at southern oilfields mean a significant expansion would be needed to materially increase northern exports, BOC sources told the newswire.
Doha is borrowing at a war premium and investing like it isn’t. The sovereign’s new 10-year notes came 45 bps wider than November’s, with the half-year deficit already past the full-year budget projection. QIA spent the same week committing USD 20 bn to JP Morgan and sitting in the consortium that just cleared the last antitrust hurdle on Paramount’s Warner Bros. takeover.
Qatar raised USD 3 bn from its first public international bond sale since November 2025, pricing five- and 10-year notes tighter than initial guidance, as investor demand held up despite a fiscal squeeze tied to the Iran war. The Finance Ministry priced USD 1 bn of five-year notes at UST+55 bps and USD 2 bn of 10-years at UST+65 bps, inside guidance of 85bp and 95bp, on orders above USD 7.7 bn, MUFG Research said. The 10-year spread came 45 bps wider than last November’s sukuk at UST+20 bp.
The fiscal backdrop: Oil and gas revenue fell to QAR 874 mn in 2Q from QAR 32.7 bn (USD 9 bn) in 1Q as the Iran war hit Hormuz shipping, according to government estimates. The 2Q deficit hit QAR 21.2 bn (USD 5.8 bn), taking the half-year shortfall to QAR 31.5 bn, past the QAR 21.8 bn full-year projection.
QIA is putting USD 20 bn behind a single manager. The Qatar Investment Authority and JP Morgan Asset Management signed a multi-asset strategic partnership spanning public and private equities and credit. QIA is handing JP Morgan a USD 15 bn long-term public equities mandate, alongside a USD 5 bn private markets programme aimed at established US middle-market companies.
The Gulf’s USD 110 bn bet on US media has cleared its last big obstacle. Paramount has settled the US antitrust suit threatening its Warner Bros. Discovery takeover, Bloomberg reports. It agreed to an annual 30-film requirement, an extra USD 1.5 bn of US production spending over five years, and distribution agreements for its cable arms — among several terms struck with the California-led group of states.
PIF gets a US media foothold. The merger carries nearly USD 24 bn in commitments from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi’s L’Imad, and the Qatar Investment Authority, all of which are set to hold minority, non-voting stakes in the combined company.
Al Nassr is the next test of PIF’s football retreat. Cristiano Ronaldo and RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale are among five investors in talks to buy a stake at USD 100 mn-plus each, c. USD 500 mn, A Bola reports. Asharq Business says Ronaldo is invoking a contract clause giving him priority on 20% of the club. Sportitalia calls RedBird’s interest preliminary.
A Bola calls the headline figure a capital injection, not a price to PIF. With debt north of SAR 800 mn and a transfer freeze behind it, the club may need the money more than PIF needs the exit. PIF bought 75% of the Big Four in 2023 and has pulled back since: Sport is out of its 2026-2030 priorities and summer transfer spend league-wide fell to c. USD 57 mn from Deloitte’s USD 957 mn. That stake went to 100% in August, the tidy-up before the USD 320 mn Al Hilal sale.
XRG is shopping for a seat in one of the biggest LNG projects outside the Gulf. Adnoc’s international investment arm is evaluating a stake in Shell’s LNG Canada export project and has spoken to existing backers, including PetroChina, about buying part of their holdings, Bloomberg reports, citing people it says are familiar with the matter.
On the project: LNG Canada started up the British Columbia facility last year — a c. CAD 40 bn first phase with 14 mn tons of annual capacity, backed by Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, and Korean investors. A second phase could be approved as soon as next month, Reuters reported last week, and PetroChina was said in July to be looking to sell down to help fund it.
BlueFive’s USD 3 bn defense fund is “ready to launch,” founder Hazem Ben-Gacem tells Semafor, five months after it was first flagged in April. He also confirmed a Jakarta office aimed at shariah-compliant demand across Southeast Asia, following last year’s Sidra Capital purchase, and said he is eyeing an agreement with one of the region’s stock exchanges to turn it into a venue for digital assets.
Why it matters: BlueFive has been among the region’s busiest dealmakers this year, war notwithstanding — its USD 3 bn Onyx tech fund closed just before the war started, on top of a 30% stake in Bugatti Rimac and backing for an Islamic digital bank. At USD 15 bn AUM, with royal families across the Gulf bar Qatar as founding LPs, it moves fast once it starts talking.
Adia is taking profit on Lenskart without leaving it. Its Platinum Jasmine A 2018 Trust may have offloaded 1.7% of India’s Lenskart Solutions in a block worth INR 20.4 bn (USD 213.8 mn), CNBC-TV18 reports, citing people it says are in the know. The trust held 9.77% as of 30 June, per NDTVProfit, after selling 2.3% in June at INR 490 a share for c. INR 19.6 bn (USD 205 mn).
Adia put in USD 500 mn for 10% in March 2023 — valuing Lenskart at c. USD 5 bn, against the c. USD 12.6 bn this block implies, by our math. Net income rose 270% y-o-y to INR 2.2 bn (USD 22.9 mn) in 1Q FY 2027 on revenue up 43% to INR 27.1 bn (USD 282.6 mn), and the stock is up 64.5% YTD since its weak debut last November.
ADQ is closing its AD Ports buyout two weeks early. L’Imad’s ADQ will hold 98.93% of AD Ports Group once the AED 6.25-a-share transaction settles this Friday, 25 September, pulled forward from 9 October after all conditions were satisfied, according to a bourse filing (pdf).
We reported last week that the tender took ADQ past 98.50%, on 23.08% tendered against an existing 75.42% — clearing the threshold to force out the rest under UAE takeover rules. The filing puts the final count at 98.93% without explaining the difference.
What’s next: ADQ has 60 days from settlement to apply for mandatory acquisition of the remaining 1.07%. Expect a squeeze-out notice shortly, then a challenge period, then delisting.
Mubadala is backing an Egyptian payments business at the scale-up stage. Cairo-born Paymob raised USD 35 mn in a pre-series C round co-led by Mubadala and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), according to a joint statement (pdf). The UK government’s British International Investment, Dubai-based Global Ventures, and DPI Ventures also took part. No valuation, stake, or comparison against Paymob’s last priced equity raise was disclosed.
Where it goes: Regional expansion across the core payments acceptance business and new products aimed at SME merchants and agentic commerce.
The EBRD is lending directly to our friends at EFG Holding for the first time. The bank is extending USD 40 mn to expand MSME financing through subsidiaries of EFG Finance, EFG’s NBFI platform, targeting businesses in rural areas outside major cities where finance is hardest to reach, according to an EBRD statement.
REMEMBER- EBRD has lent into EFG’s network for years without reaching the holding company — facilities to Bank NXT, Tanmeyah, and Valu, including a EGP 600 mn (USD 11.6 mn) loan in June for household solar and EV purchases.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING
Sharjah Islamic Bank completed a USD 500 mn no-grow five-year senior unsecured sukuk priced at 105 bps over US Treasuries, down from initial price thoughts, on a book 2.5x oversubscribed, according to a statement. The Reg S wakala paper sits under SIB’s USD 3 bn Trust Certificate Issuance Program and will list on Euronext Dublin and Nasdaq Dubai, Zawya reports.
Oman taps Kaspersky to bring cybersecurity services onshore:Otech, Omantel’s technology arm, became an authorized Kaspersky Managed Security Service Provider in Oman. Under the agreement, Otech will provide Kaspersky cybersecurity solutions via a locally-hosted cloud, with round-the-clock support and management delivered from within the Sultanate, the companies said in a joint statement.
MENA has been the Russian cybersecurity vendor’s fastest growing region, since the US banned its products in late 2024 and sanctioned top executives. While the company’s B2C revenue fell by 3% y-o-y in 2025, MENA-driven revenues rose by 39%. The same also applied on on B2B products, with MENA revenues growing at 23% — far outpacing the global growth rate of 16%.
And the US-Iran war is further fueling this trend: Kaspersky regional sales logged in a 32% growth in 1H this year, the firm’s regional director Toufic Derbass told industry outlet ITP earlier this month. The windfall comes as businesses and governments field unprecedented surge in cyber attacks amid heightened geopolitical volatility in the region.
Sweet on Benghazi
German engineering contractor BMA will build Libya’s first industrial-scale sugar production plant, according to the company’s statement. The Julyana Sugar Project, planned in Benghazi’s Juliana Freezone, is expected to be completed within 24 months and produce 2.5k tons of raw sugar per day. There is a lot we don’t know about the project. Details, like the contract value, financing, and commercial launch, were not disclosed. It is also not clear whether this is a government-backed project, or advanced by private Libyan investors. That is good news for Libya and bad news for sugar exporters in neighboring countries. Libya ranked as the world’s 24th top importer of raw sugar in 2024 at a USD 513 mn bill, which given its small market suggests major dependence on imports. The country imported most of its raw sugar needs from Brazil, India, and Morocco in 2024, with smaller volumes also coming from its neighbors Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. ZOOMING OUT- Benghazi, the center of the Haftar-led government that controls the east of the country, has been the site of bustling economic and investment activity with European and regional companies, including those from Italy, Germany, Egypt, and Turkey, signing contracting agreements for reconstruction projects, as well as investment in real estate, healthcare, and the steel industry.
Two clicks to Baghdad?
Syria and Iraq have agreed to digitally link their customs systems at border crossings, Syrian state news agency Sana reported. Restoring passenger traffic at the crossing will come next once the needed infrastructure rehabilitation is complete. Iraq and Syria have three official crossings: Al Qaim-Abu Kamal crossing (open since June 2025), as well as Al Tanf-Waleed and Yarubiyah-Rabia crossings, both reopened last April as Iraq rushed to move crude overland to Syrian ports as a reroute around Hormuz. Similarly, on the Turkish side of the border, five crossings are currently being upgraded to accommodate the growing trade flows, which are estimated at 17% y-o-y during the first seven months of 2026.
GO DEEPER- Syria was historically the shortest, cheapest, and busiest land bridge connecting trade flows between Europe and our region, but over a decade of conflict halted that, with Jordan emerging as the main beneficiary as an intermodal transit node. To dive deeper, check out our Lede from last March hashing out why Syria is well positioned to recapture these flows again after the end of the conflict and what hurdles may slow it down.
July 2027 — that’s the deadline Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi put on disarming the militant arms of Iraqi political groups in an interview with the New York Times. Iraq has been under pressure from Washington to disarm the groups it views as Iran-backed proxies in the country. The exact mechanics of the disarmament process are still being hashed out, but Al Zaidi pledged to see it through to the end, describing it as a top priority for his government, on par with his government’s campaign against corruption. Exact details about the disarmament mechanisms are now due on 30 September, as negotiations with the groups advance. REMEMBER- The timeline has moved once before: Al Zaidi first set 30 September of this year as a deadline for disarmament, coinciding with the planned full withdrawal of US forces. The deadline is now set for 30 July after objections from the concerned political groups, which are now also requesting the full withdrawal of Turkish military forces that have established a presence in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for a few decades.
Hot potato
The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) secured preliminary approval from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) to acquire Banque Misr’s branches in the Emirates, the two state-owned lenders said in a joint statement (pdf). The banks called it a preliminary agreement to integrate their overseas banking presence into a single operation under UAE rules.
IN CONTEXT- Those are the same branches the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed on 28 August to cut off from correspondent banking access to American institutions, though the decision is not yet finalized and a 30-day public comment window is still open. The US regulator alleges the branches moved some USD 1.8 bn between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies it links to Iranian shadow-banking networks. The proposed measure targets only the UAE branches. Banque Misr’s Egypt business and other overseas operations are not affected, the Central Bank of Egypt said at the time. The CBUAE launched its own investigation of the branches, looking at the same period covered by the US allegations.
Papers, please
Jordan is tightening the screws on foreign labor, issuing a 30 September deadline for foreign workers who entered the country irregularly to legalize their status. Non-compliant workers will be exposed to deportation, and their employers may face a fine of at least JOD 800 or USD 1.1k per violation, state news agency Petra reports.
The directive stems from a Labor Ministrydecision issued in June, in which the government put a moratorium on foreign workers’ recruitment across most economic sectors. The decision aims to address the country’s structural unemployment crisis in a country that has seen unemployment rates in the double digits for decades. As of 1H 2026, Jordanian unemployment stood at 21%.
MENA+ Edition 
Egypt Edition 
UAE Edition 
Saudi Edition 
Logistics (MENA) 
Share Issue
