Issam Mamlouk left PIF's megadeals for the GCC's mid-market — where he says sponsors are outnumbered by deals

Issam Al Mamlouk, founder and CEO of I.M. Mamlouk & Co., spent years on the large-cap side of private equity — first at JPMorgan, then at Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) — before deciding the real opportunity in the region was the segment everyone else was ignoring. He left Riyadh for Abu Dhabi to build an ADGM-based platform focused squarely on mid-market businesses worth USD 50-250 mn in enterprise value: family businesses facing succession, sector consolidation plays — transactions too small for the mega-funds and too large for VCs.

Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a member of the community starts their day — and throws in a couple of questions just for fun. This week, we sat down with Al Mamlouk (LinkedIn) to talk about why he thinks the mid-market is underserved, what he looks for in a target business, and how he’s learned to make big decisions without having all the answers. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: First thing’s first: Who are you? How would you introduce yourself to someone who doesn't know you?

Issam Mamlouk (IM): I’m the founder and CEO of I.M. Mamlouk & Co., a mid-market private equity platform based out of ADGM. Our investment focus is mid-market private equity businesses focused on the GCC. We believe this is one of the most exciting parts of the world to be in private markets.

We're sector agnostic, because we see exciting opportunities across multiple industries in the mid-market — manufacturing, industrials, business services, healthcare. All of those are growing at their own great clip regionally.

E: You were at JPMorgan and then moved to PIF. What made you decide to start something of your own?

IM: While I was working on large-cap private equity transactions, I noticed there's a very interesting opportunity in the mid-market. The large-cap space is very well covered. The VC side has a growing, thriving ecosystem. In the mid-market, I noticed there's significantly more deals than there are PE sponsors in the space — given economic diversification, a lot of succession happening in family businesses, and the ability to roll up and consolidate industries. This doesn't come around very often, so I went and started a platform dedicated to doing that.

E: What do you actually look for in a business before you invest?

IM: We look for businesses where we can add value — governance, financial, operations — and partner with the management team and shareholders on a path forward for the next five to seven years.

Founder dependence is something very important we look at. If a business has been around for 30 or 40 years and is still very founder-heavy, that's fine if there's a willingness to build a deep bench in management. But if the business wouldn’t do well without the founder, that's tricky for us.

We also look at growing markets. You can buy a great business, but if the sector is declining, that's a difficult investment over five or six years. And transparency and accountability, with everyone we work with — counterparties, sellers, stakeholders — matter a lot to us.

E: What's your read on the market given how uncertain things are geopolitically right now?

IM: M&A activity in the mid-market continued to do well through the first half of 2026, with a strong uptick in the second quarter. We expect to see even more activity in the second half — in line with previous years, where sponsors try to close transactions before year-end. We're quite optimistic and we still think this is one of the most exciting places to invest in private markets globally, and we'll be investing here for decades to come.

E: There's a lot of large-cap PE money flowing into the region now too. What do you think about that competition?

IM: It's exciting, actually — it's great for the ecosystem, great for the financial markets, and great for mid-market exits. One of the things people always look at in private equity is exits: if you buy a business for USD 100 mn and you're looking to sell it for USD 300-400 mn in five years, an IPO is one route, but now you also have large-cap global firms looking at transactions in the region. It complements everything we're doing.

E: Take us through your morning.

IM: I'm usually up around 5:30am. I spend about 45 minutes catching up on financial news, scanning what's happening locally and globally across public and private markets, fixed income, and interest rates. Then I spend about 45 minutes at the gym. After that I try to always have breakfast with my wife and kids before heading to work, and I'm usually at my desk around 8:30am.

E: And the rest of the day?

IM: That's the interesting part of running a business — every day is different. Some days you're in back-to-back meetings, some days you're in a conference room going through financials and diligence reports, some days you're just traveling. It's much less predictable than a typical role. I try to be home for dinner — even though I usually work in the evening too. It's a nice way to disconnect. Phone away for 45 minutes, have dinner, recap the day, then get back to work if I need to.

E: Five years from now, what does success look like, for the business and for you personally?

IM: On the business side, it's important that we invest in local businesses that end up expanding regionally. I want us to be turning a USD 100 mn business into a regional champion across multiple countries and into a USD 300-400 mn business. That lets us contribute to the ecosystem, the economy, create jobs, and expand industries.

Personally, I want to keep mentoring individuals who want to be in financial services or investment. If somebody I'm helping today is in a mid-level or senior role somewhere in five years, that matters a lot to me.

Issam's picks

What he's reading: I really enjoy The Sherlock Holmes books by Arthur Conan Doyle.

What he's watching: The Guy Ritchie catalog on Netflix, like The Gentlemen and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Favorite piece of advice: Be comfortable making decisions with imperfect information — you'll never have 100% of the data, and overanalyzing is worse than failing quickly and moving on.