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Mubadala, Taraf plot a new Al Reem waterfront
Yas Holding’s real estate arm Taraf partnered with Mubadala to explore a major mixed-use waterfront development on Al Reem Island, putting 5.4 mn sq ft of potential real estate on the drawing board, according to a press release. Under an MoU they signed, the partners will assess development across 10 plots spanning 655k sq ft of land, with the masterplan promising the standard luxury diet: one- to four-bedroom apartments, high-end penthouses, commercial offices, and plenty of retail along landscaped plazas.
Eurazeo comes to Abu Dhabi
Paris-listed private-markets manager Eurazeo has opened its first Middle East office in ADGM, according to a press release. The EUR 40 bn manager isn't new to the region. It says Gulf sovereign funds, family offices, and institutions have become increasingly important as investors over the past decade, and the Gulf has become a growth market for its portfolio companies.
Raising Gulf money for European mid-market deals: Eurazeo believes Gulf investors want more exposure to Europe, and is pitching its European mid-market portfolio as the way in. The Abu Dhabi office, led by investor relations MD Adrien Pinelli, will cover the wider region and support portfolio companies expanding into the Gulf.
It's joining a crowd: ADGM registered 84 new firms in the first nine months of the year and is on track for a record 112 in 2026, according to Global SWF's latest MENA Playbook.
Agrobank comes back to Mashreq — for a much bigger check
Uzbekistan’s Agrobank closed a USD 300 mn, two-year syndicated term loan led by our friends at Mashreq, which acted as coordinator, initial mandated lead arranger, bookrunner, and documentation agent, according to a company statement. The facility was launched at USD 140 mn but drew USD 365 mn of commitments from 19 lenders across MENA, the CIS, and the Far East — more than 2.6x the original target — before being capped at USD 300 mn.
This isn’t Agrobank’s first Mashreq-led trip to the loan market: We reported in 2024 that the UAE lender arranged a USD 88 mn, one-year facility for Agrobank — the first syndicated loan by an Uzbekistan-owned bank in the MENA region at the time. The new transaction is more than triple that size.
Separately, Mashreq is putting tokenized deposits to work
Our friends at Mashreq completed a live cross-border transaction with Citi using SWIFT’s blockchain ledger and bank-issued tokenized deposits, according to a press release. The test looks at whether banks can move funds across borders in real time and outside traditional banking hours while keeping the money within regulated bank-deposit infrastructure.
It’s part of a broader bank-led payments push: SWIFT’s ledger was designed with more than 40 financial institutions, with 17 banks now piloting tokenized-deposit transactions. Its first phase is focused on 24/7 real-time cross-border payments.
IN CONTEXT- We went deep on tokenized deposits in July, when HSBC began rolling them out to UAE corporates. Unlike stablecoins, tokenized deposits remain liabilities of regulated banks — essentially familiar commercial-bank money running on blockchain rails. Mashreq’s transaction puts one of the main proposed uses for the technology — 24/7 cross-border payments — into a live banking test.
