THIS MORNING: Mubadala says Man City saga won’t get in the way of UK investments + Adnoc L&S eyes a stake in Abu Dhabi offshore services firm

Good morning, wonderful people. For months, the UAE has watched the war from a slight distance. This week, that distance is starting to close.

The fallout from the attacks on Saudi Arabia is beginning to spill over to the UAE after Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport said it would stay closed until 17 October. International airlines such as Air France are delaying Dubai flights to the end of October, alongside delays to flights to Riyadh, and some events looking quieter than usual. The Airport Show at DWTC, which wraps up today, has been noticeably quiet this week, with fewer agreements coming out of the floor than is typical, a source tells us.

Reuters has also pushed back its Reuters NEXT Gulf conference, which was set for 21 October, to October 2027. Officially, the delay is about aligning with other regional events and building out a fuller program. The conference will still take place in Abu Dhabi, with the Department of Economic Development acting as host city partner.

Abu Dhabi is closing ranks with Riyadh: Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed called his Saudi counterpart to pledge the UAE’s full solidarity with the Kingdom, according to state news agency Wam. It’s the latest sign of warming ties between the two capitals.

None of this is a crisis here at home. Markets are steady, business is getting done, and banks are returning to debt markets (Read: today’s Debt Watch). But the uncomfortable closeness of what’s happening in the Kingdom is starting to be felt.

That’s the backdrop for today’s big story: how the war is reshaping where companies store their goods, and why some are looking to Fujairah to get around Hormuz.

Emirates Islamic’s sukuk is 2.4x covered on day one

Emirates Islamic opened books yesterday on a USD 500 mn, five-year sukuk and has already drawn more than USD 1.2 bn in orders, excluding lead managers, Zawya reports, citing IFR data. Initial price guidance is 115 bps over US Treasuries. The Fitch-rated A+ lender is issuing fixed-rate, senior unsecured notes under its USD 4 bn certificate issuance program.

REMEMBER- That matches the full order book of its last offering, with books still open. Emirates Islamic raised USD 500 mn through a sustainability-linked sukuk in September 2025, priced at 4.54%, or 95 bps over Treasuries, on USD 1.2 bn in orders. This time, initial guidance is 20 bps wider than where the 2025 offering 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.

Man City saga won’t hamper UAE-UK investments

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.

What they said: Al Muhairi described the bilateral investment relationship as “its own separate process,” adding that the sovereign wealth fund “[has] been and continue[s] to deploy” in the UK. Mubadala has already said it’s sticking to its aggressive deployment approach across other markets and looking to replicate last year’s AED 39 bn worth of investments this year, with a particular focus on upping its Asia exposure.

Mubadala already has significant investments to protect in the UK, having bought into the UK-Ireland power link this summer, backed the take-private of the UK’s Intertek, and committed fresh funds to UK telco CityFibre, to name a few.

Adnoc L&S eyes another takeover

Adnoc L&S is in talks to buy a stake in Abu Dhabi offshore services firm HEA Energy at a valuation of up to USD 3 bn, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people it says are familiar with the matter. The stake could be a minority or a controlling one, and the talks could still fall through, the sources said.

HEA would add a different kind of asset. Founded in 2022, it operates self-elevating barges for offshore wind and oil and gas maintenance. Its revenue more than doubled this year to about USD 100 mn, according to the Journal.

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. In January 2025, it completed a USD 1.04 bn acquisition of an 80% stake in Navig8, adding 32 tankers and expanding its international footprint.

The talks follow a blowout half for Adnoc L&S’ shipping business. The company’s net income rose 179% to USD 1.2 bn in 1H on higher charter rates and chartering activity as Adnoc moved crude through Hormuz.

A stake in HEA could take Adnoc L&S into the North Sea and the US, adding to a business that supports offshore drilling and operates more than 100 ships transporting crude, LNG, and refined products. The company’s order commitments this year reached roughly USD 2.7 bn by late August for vessel acquisitions and newbuild orders, including VLCCs, VLGCs, and LNG carriers.

Dubai wants to put buses underground too

RTA eyes underground transport network for Dubai: Think Etihad Rail, the Dubai Loop, and the metro expansion were enough? Think again. Dubai could soon be rolling out an integrated underground transport network, The National reports, citing comments by director general of Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) Mattar Al Tayer. The project is still at the conception stage, with authorities examining what a network could look like in practice, and no investment ticket or timeline has been specified yet.

Going above and below: The new system is an effort to tackle what the RTA sees as unnecessary congestion on Dubai’s roads and create a more integrated public transport system that will take more of the movement off the roads and out of sight, Al Tayer says. Currently, 11 mn journeys are made on Dubai’s roads per day, he adds.

Things are moving underground already: The RTA didn’t specify whether a new network would fit alongside or be integrated with The Boring Company’s (TBC) AED 2 bn Dubai Loop. TBC is also exploring underground transport systems for Abu Dhabi.

IN CONTEXT- New public transport projects are moving at breakneck speed, with authorities pushing on developments across rail and metro simultaneously, as well as autonomous transport. The RTA is aiming for one in four journeys to be autonomous by 2030.

PSA

WEATHER- Dubai will see highs of 38°C today before cooling to 30°C overnight, while temperatures in Abu Dhabi will hit 37°C and see overnight lows of 30°C, according to our favorite weather app.

The gas crunch gave Egypt every reason to speed up its energy transition, and the question now is who builds it and who pays for it.

Power Trip, our four-part signature series, turns this week to the transition and the private developers now building much of Egypt’s new power.

Issue II looks at how the deals behind these projects work, who is lending to them, and why the country is building a nuclear plant at El Dabaa alongside its solar and wind farms. We also look at whether the regional crisis has finally pushed industry toward renewables, and at the factories Egypt is counting on to build its own panels, batteries, and turbines.

Tap here to subscribe to the Egypt edition and get Power Trip delivered straight to your inbox today.

The Gulf’s sovereign funds and largest companies are committing bns to AI infrastructure at home and to AI companies in the US and beyond. EnterpriseAM AI + Innovation reports on where that capital goes, who controls it and what it is actually buying.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we also cover the startups and established firms across MENA putting AI to work, and how it is changing jobs, education and the way business runs.

It’s sharp, analytical and skeptical journalism that ignores hype and is laser-focused on informing our readers, not pleasing our sources.

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The big story abroad

US authorities arrested a Saudi OpenAI employee for allegedly planting a recording device at the company's San Francisco headquarters. A security team found the device hidden in toilet paper behind a TV in an executive meeting room at its headquarters on 30 September. OpenAI fired the employee and said it found no sign that customer data, source code, or model weights had been stolen.

The US Treasury Department fined Bank of America more than USD 1 bn for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and failing to report over USD 5 bn in suspicious activity. This included “suspicious transactions indicative of Chinese Money Laundering Networks, fraud, and potential trade-based money laundering with a substantial nexus to the southwest border,” the Treasury Department said.

Google released its flagship AI model Gemini 4 Argon to developers and businesses worldwide. The model is billed as particularly effective at complex, multi-step work across coding, finance, legal affairs, cybersecurity, and scientific research.

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