THIS MORNING: UAE pledges EUR 15 bn in investments for Greece + XRG eyes Libya

Good morning, everyone, and happy FRIDAY. There’s plenty of good news this morning, but it’s clouded by an uncertain outlook ahead for the regional conflict, with US media saying an assault on Iran is being planned for after the 3 November midterms, and Saudi Arabia continuing to absorb escalating Houthi strikes.

UAE hiring was up 4% in 3Q 2026, recovering almost all that it lost in the Spring in a September surge. But Cooper Fitch tells us several large employers in Saudi Arabia have already asked it to pause searches, and its CEO, Trefor Murphy, expects UAE hiring to be flat or only slightly up in 4Q as the escalation casts a shadow on the region. The IMF, meanwhile, now sees the GCC’s non-oil economy shrinking this year.

Plus: Arada reopened the developer bond market for the first time since the war began. Robinhood and Advent are setting up in the DIFC and ADGM, and the UAE is pledging another EUR 15 bn to Greece.

Also worth knowing this morning: One of our own is going for the UN’s top job. Minister of State Lana Nusseibeh is officially the seventh candidate for secretary-general, entering a race the Security Council has failed to settle in six rounds of voting. We dive deeper into her pitch in the news well, below.

UAE pledges EUR 15 bn more for Greece

The UAE plans to invest an additional EUR 15 bn in Greece through a joint investment initiative, announced at the UAE-Greece Strategic Forum in Athens during Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed’s official visit, state news agency Wam reports. UAE and Greek companies also signed 18 MoUs, agreements and commercial partnerships worth more than EUR 12.75 bn. Wam gave no breakdown of the EUR 15 bn or a timeline for it.

Where the money is going: The agreements cover digital infrastructure and AI, renewables and clean-energy infrastructure, logistics, transport and ports, industry, healthcare, life sciences and food security.

Robinhood picks DIFC for its first Middle East base

US trading app Robinhood will launch its retail investing platform in the Middle East from the DIFC in 2027. The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) authorized the platform to offer trading and custody across all 10 DFSA-approved asset classes, including equities, ETFs, crypto, and investment tokens, the Nasdaq-listed company said in a statement. Salah Kaddoura, president of Robinhood MENA, will lead the regional operation.

How big is Robinhood? Robinhood had 28.6 mn funded customers and USD 384 bn in total platform assets as of August. Dubai follows launches in the UK and the EU and an in-principle brokerage approval in Singapore.

Why it matters: While most of the big names the DIFC has been attracting, such as Citadel and Maven, serve institutional investors, Robinhood is targeting individual investors. The company points to what it calls a fast-growing wave of retail investors across MENA, and a regional launch puts it up against homegrown platforms like Abu Dhabi-domiciled Sarwa. Robinhood hasn’t said when in 2027 it will launch or which countries outside the UAE it will serve.

Advent joins ADGM

Over in Abu Dhabi, private equity firm Advent International opened an office in ADGM to work more closely with Gulf institutional investors, the company said in a statement. The office will look for new deals and support Advent’s existing portfolio companies. It will be led by Mehdi Iraqi (LinkedIn), who joined Advent in January after covering regional investors at AMG and Carlyle. Abu Dhabi is Advent’s 18th office across 15 countries.

It already has friends in high places: Advent has previously partnered with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority on a USD 3 bn minority investment in US wealth manager Fisher Investments and an investment in ins. software firm Sapiens.

And the ADGM guest list keeps growing: Advent follows Eurazeo and Goanna Capital into the financial center this month, as more international asset managers establish offices near Abu Dhabi's sovereign and institutional investors.

XRG looks to Libya

XRG, Adnoc’s international investment arm, is in early talks to buy a stake in Eni’s Libyan oil and gas business, Reuters reports, citing two people familiar with the matter. Talks are at an early stage, one source said. Eni and XRG both declined to comment.

The possible target: Eni has operated in Libya since 1959 through Mellitah Oil & Gas, its joint venture with Libya’s National Oil Corporation. Libya produced 162k barrels of oil equivalent per day for Eni last year, about 10% of the Italian group’s total output. The oil giant recently completed the Bouri Gas Utilization Project, which is set to send around 700 mn cbm of recovered gas a year into Libya’s domestic market, with extra capacity earmarked for export to Europe.

Why now? The war has made it more urgent for XRG to invest and grow outside the Gulf, one of the sources told Reuters. Its recent activity point the same way: it has bought into Azerbaijan’s Absheron gas and condensate field, an offshore gas field in Venezuela, and the Rio Grande LNG export terminal in Texas, and it plans to put tens of bns of USD into US natural gas. XRG is targeting 20-25 mn tons a year of LNG capacity by 2035, and it already partners with Eni and Argentina’s YPF on a multibillion-dollar LNG project in Argentina.

PSA

WEATHER- Things are cooling down a bit over the weekend, with Dubai seeing a high of 35°C and an overnight low of 28°C, while Abu Dhabi is slightly warmer, with a high of 37°C before cooling to 27°C overnight, according to our favorite weather app.

The big story abroad

The Gulf is bracing for another round of war. Iran says it will strike oil facilities, undersea cables, data centers and AI facilities in up to seven Gulf countries if the US and Israel attack again, the Guardian reports. US media say a joint assault is being planned for after the 3 November midterms. Brent hit USD 113.4 a barrel, a recent high.

• The US State Department ordered non-emergency staff to leave Saudi Arabia over Houthi attacks, and Aramco evacuated its Dhahran headquarters after an alarm, Bloomberg reports.
• With its own output throttled, QatarEnergy signed its first US offtake deal, buying 4 mn tons a year of LNG from Cheniere through 2054 (Bloomberg).

Plus: Investor appetite for AI is cooling. OpenAI has cut its valuation target to USD 1.25 tn after investors resisted the USD 1.4 tn it pitched earlier this month, as tech stocks sell off on concerns about the debt-fuelled AI build-out, the FT reports. UAE funds are in talks to co-lead the USD 30 bn round, which would give OpenAI first refusal on new computing capacity from its UAE partners.

Washington is also tightening the rules on where US money can go. The Treasury proposed tougher curbs on US investment in sensitive Chinese technology, from AI and advanced chips to biotech, a month after Trump and Xi extended their trade truce to January.

In Europe, France is banning protests after its worst riots in years. Its 10-year yield hit 5.14%, the highest since 2002, and its spread over German bonds is the widest in 15 years (Reuters).

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