Adia’s latest moves show a fund buying cheap in private markets and selling out of aging real estate

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) is playing both sides of its portfolio this week. It’s buying into a rare slice of Saudi private markets exposure through the Saudi King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’s (Kaust) secondaries sale, and it’s in talks to sell a hotel stake it’s held in Hong Kong for a decade. Together, the moves read as confirmation of a pattern we’ve tracked through the year: Adia is expanding its private equity exposure through tactical secondaries while steadily pruning legacy direct real estate holdings that no longer earn their place in the book.

The fund is reportedly buying into a Saudi portfolio worth at least USD 1 bn that the Kaust endowment is offloading into the secondaries market, PEI Secondaries Investor reports, citing three sources it says are familiar with the matter. The book carries Asia-Pacific and China private markets exposure, and Jefferies is understood to be advising.

This is one more gear turning in a busy year for Adia’s secondaries machine. The USD 1.13 tn fund agreed in March to invest in a new real estate secondaries platform with Ardian. It has also served as a lead or co-lead investor on continuation vehicles for Beijing’s GL Capital and Hong Kong’s CDH Investments, alongside a cornerstone commitment to Apollo Global Management’s S3 platform.

BACKGROUND- Kaust joins a growing line of university endowments testing the secondaries market for liquidity, alongside the University of California, Yale, and Harvard. But this transaction doubles as one of the more direct capital links we’ve seen between an Emirati sovereign fund and a Saudi institutional balance sheet as both governments race to build out their own private-capital ecosystems. Little is publicly disclosed about the Kaust endowment, which is run out of Washington, DC by the Kaust Investment Management Company.

What we don’t know yet: exact pricing, the full manager list, or whether this is a one-off rebalancing or the start of a broader Kaust sell-down. Adia and Jefferies declined to comment, and Kaust didn’t respond to PEI Secondaries Investor’s questions.

The sovereign wealth fund is also in talks to sell its 50% stake in the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong in Kowloon to Singapore’s UOL Group — unwinding, alongside longtime JV partner New World Development, part of a hotel investment that was Adia’s biggest Asian property investment when it went in a decade ago, Bloomberg reports, citing people it says are familiar with the matter. The potential transaction would value the hotel alone at HKD 3 bn (USD 382 mn). Both Adia and UOL declined to comment, and New World didn’t respond to a request for comment.

BACKGROUND- Adia bought into the Hyatt Regency and two sister hotels — the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and the Renaissance Harbour View — in 2015, paying HKD 18.5 bn (USD 2.4 bn) for a 50% stake alongside New World. The two refinanced a USD 1.21 bn loan tied to the three hotels in 2024.

Recalibration for Adia, a need for New World: Adia also sold a majority stake in a Shanghai office tower at a discount to its original asking price last year — part of a recalibration in China amid rising office vacancies and declining rental yields. The transaction also forms part of a broader optimization strategy to ration Adia’s global real estate portfolio, which has seen it divest stakes in UK shopping center Liverpool ONE and 33 hotels under Marriott International brands in the UK. New World is also looking to dispose of assets as it tries to address its debt, which has reached roughly HKD 122.7 bn (USD 15.6 bn) as of last year. It’s sold some HKD 68 bn in assets over the past four years and is chasing another HKD 13 bn this fiscal year — a campaign that also includes a planned mainland China REIT listing.