Is the UAE ready for driverless cars?

1

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

THIS MORNING: Damac’s data center arm hunts for land in UK and Australia + Emaar’s sales are down over 50% this year

Good morning, nice people. The Gulf has spent two decades exporting capital. Now it’s doing the opposite: asking for more foreign money to help fund its projects at home.

Officials, global investors, and capital allocators alike were singing the praises of the region and its resilience even in crisis at Bloomberg Invest yesterday. The stance now seems to be that the region’s capital needs are only growing and that sovereign investors can’t — and shouldn’t — foot the bill alone. Yes, sovereigns and quasi-sovereigns might allocate more capital to domestic assets than international ones, but what we’ll also see much more of is partnerships with foreign investors.

“I see [room] to attract third-party capital in ways we haven’t in the past,” Investment Minister Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi said on stage. The projects on offer include energy routes around the Strait of Hormuz, new ports on the east coast, data centers, and AI.

Speakers argued the war has made the case for investing in the region stronger, not weaker. It exposed how much the region needs to diversify where its money comes from and the routes its exports take.

Global money managers are happy to oblige. Blackstone has deployed more capital in the region this year than ever before, Global Chief Operating Officer for Private Wealth Farhad Karim said. On AI infrastructure, he says the firm is “doubling, tripling, quadrupling” down, despite the concerns around infrastructure resilience after Amazon Web Services’ data centers in Dubai and Bahrain were targeted earlier this year.

Still, the region’s developers are increasingly putting theirs to work abroad. Alabbar says India is on its radar over the next five years. And Damac’s Hussain Sajwani said the developer’s data center arm is in talks for data center land in the UK and Australia, on top of the three US sites the company has already secured.

In today’s issue: Our Lede asks whether the UAE’s roads and rules are ready for driverless cars, after a robotaxi was filmed stuck facing the wrong way this week. Plus: An ADGM court has found NMC founder B.R. Shetty and former CEO Prasanth Manghat liable for an eight-year fraud, with USD 5.4 bn as the starting point for what they may owe. And earnings season brings us more results from Adnoc L&S, Emirates Global Aluminium, Emsteel, and more.

Waiting out the winter

Emaar’s sales are down over 50% this year, Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar said at Bloomberg Invest yesterday. The drop comes off a high base: sales had been growing about 50% a year. Alabbar said the developer “does not believe in [markdowns]” and hasn’t cut prices to move units, which explains the drop. He insisted that won’t slow Emaar down in the UAE, adding that we are “in a winter” globally.

The slowdown is showing up across the business. Footfall at Emaar’s malls is down about 10%, after growing roughly 10% a year for the past five years, while hotel occupancy has slipped to around 65% from 80%, he said.

Construction isn’t slowing, though: Materials are still coming in, despite costs going up about 5%. Emaar is helping contractors absorb the increase, and Alabbar says they’re still delivering ahead of schedule.

…with the exception of one tower: Alabbar said he’s holding back on tendering one tower until the “situation cools down.” He didn’t mention which one, but in January, he said the Dubai Creek Tower would go to tender within three months. In June, port closures pushed up material costs, and the tender slipped another three to four months, as we reported at the time. Emaar had been expected to spend more than AED 14 bn on the tower and the adjoining Creek Mall.

Damac Digital is hunting for land in UK, Australia

Damac’s data center arm will buy more land outside the US over the next 18 months, and it’s in advanced talks for a parcel of land in the UK and another in Australia, founder Hussain Sajwani said at Bloomberg Invest yesterday. Both would be new for Damac Digital, Damac’s data center arm, which already has operations or projects in 14 countries.

The US is still the core: Sajwani expects the US to remain the world’s biggest market for AI infrastructure, and Damac has already secured three parcels of land there. He’s committed USD 20 bn to the US and would “love to do more,” he said yesterday. That pledge was announced alongside US President Donald Trump in January 2025, with an option to double it to USD 40 bn. By January, Damac said it had secured about USD 12 bn of the USD 20 bn in land and power: around 1 GW across sites in Ohio and New Jersey.

The near-term target is 10 GW: Sajwani hopes Edgnex will reach 10 GW of capacity worldwide within 18 months, he said. He added that Damac is currently one of the largest markets in terms of data infrastructure land banks. The firm had been targeting 300 MW+ of operational capacity by 2026 as of last year.

It has a solid pipeline: Outside the US, Damac’s build-out so far has been in Asia and southern Europe. It committed about USD 3 bn to Southeast Asia in late 2024, including a USD 2.3 bn, 144 MW campus in Jakarta. Closer to home, it has 500 MW of future capacity planned in Saudi Arabia. Its European projects are smaller: a 40 MW site in Madrid, a 12.5 MW first phase outside Athens, and a 4 MW facility in Izmir that opened in September and is set to scale to 20 MW. It also has a planned site in Milan and a pipeline across Finland through its acquisition of Hyperco.

Six years on, NMC's multi-bn-USD reckoning is taking shape

An ADGM court has found NMC Health founder B.R. Shetty and former CEO Prasanth Manghat liable for participating in an eight-year fraud that helped bring down the healthcare group in 2020, according to a 5 November court judgment (pdf). Both men were found liable for fraudulent and wrongful trading, with the court setting about USD 5.4 bn as the starting point for working out how much they should contribute to NMC’s assets. That isn’t a final award, and the amounts will be decided at a further hearing.

What the court found: Between 2012 and 2020, bns of USD were diverted from NMC while undisclosed borrowing and misleading financial statements concealed the group’s true financial position. The court found that Shetty knowingly received improperly transferred funds, while Manghat helped facilitate transfers benefiting both men and others. He also helped hide the group’s borrowings from its auditors, Ernst & Young, The National reports.

The court also upheld a ruling in favor of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank in a separate claim against Manghat, establishing more than USD 1.2 bn in damages linked to unpaid liabilities and lost earnings, subject to adjustments.

REMEMBER- NMC’s collapse has been keeping the courts busy: The hospital operator entered administration in 2020 after a short-seller report triggered scrutiny that uncovered bns of USD in hidden debt. It subsequently restructured and settled a dispute with Dubai Islamic Bank in 2024, while Shetty sued Bank of Baroda for USD 15 bn last month over alleged misconduct linked to the collapse, which the bank denies. The latest ruling is a significant step toward determining who must reimburse NMC, although a further hearing — and the question of how much creditors can ultimately recover — remains outstanding.

Data point

AED 36.7 bn — that's how much gross bank credit grew in September, up 1.3% m-o-m to AED 2.9 tn, according to the Central Bank of the UAE’s latest monetary and banking developments report. Domestic credit did much of the heavy lifting, rising 1.6% to AED 2.3 tn, with lending to the government up AED 11.1 bn and corporate borrowing increasing by AED 10.8 bn. Lending to individuals grew by a more modest AED 5.2 bn (+0.8%). That’s a shift from July, when individuals accounted for the largest increase in domestic credit.

And deposits lagged slightly again: Total bank deposits rose 0.9% m-o-m to AED 3.6 tn, with resident deposits up 0.6% to AED 3.2 tn and non-resident deposits rising 4.1% to AED 317.9 bn. Government-related entities provided much of the momentum within resident deposits, climbing 9.6% to AED 378.2 bn. Private-sector deposits held largely steady from August at AED 2.35 tn, and government lending edged down 0.2% to AED 460.4 bn.

PSA

Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) reopened seven public and resort beaches after nearly three weeks of closures following an oil spill from the Gem No.2 tanker off the UAE’s northern coast, local authorities announced. Flamingo, Dahan, and Al Mairid beaches and Al Rams Corniche are now open, alongside beaches at the Anantara Mina Al Arab, InterContinental Mina Al Arab, and Cove Rotana resorts.

Beaches in Sharjah were also reopened after containing pollution from an oil spill, authorities said in a separate announcement. Authorities said beaches were now safe to visit and they would continue to monitor the environmental conditions.

REMEMBER- The spill came at an awkward time for RAK’s tourism industry: As we reported in October, authorities closed beaches across RAK, Umm Al Quwain, and parts of Sharjah just as the winter tourism season was getting underway.

The waters off the northern emirates are still a risk for shipping: Maritime security player Ambrey said a projectile hit a merchant vessel north of RAK on Wednesday, Reuters reports. There were no injuries, and Ambrey didn’t specify where the projectile was launched from. Earlier this week, an Adnoc L&S vessel was struck and damaged in an attack in the Arabian Gulf, but the firm also didn’t specify where it came from.

WEATHER- Temperatures are down to 30°C during the day and 24°C overnight in both emirates, according to our favorite weather app.

The big story abroad

Jensen Huang’s resignation from Nvidia briefly rattled markets yesterday, but investors quickly concluded the AI boom is bigger than one man. Nvidia shares fell 14% at the open after Huang stepped down over a series of affairs, including one with a woman US intelligence suspects of spying for China.

The stock recovered to close down 4.3%, as investors weighed AI demand and looked for companies that could benefit from the turmoil, Bloomberg reports. Rival chipmakers Broadcom and AMD were among the S&P 500’s biggest gainers on bets they’ll pick up any business Nvidia loses. CFO Colette Kress is now interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent replacement.

The bigger worry is for the companies Huang helped build. Over the past few years, Huang used Nvidia’s profits to fund dozens of AI firms, many of them also its customers. Investors are now asking how much of that support continues without him. AI cloud providers took the hardest hit: Nebius fell 16.8% and CoreWeave 6.9%, Reuters reports.

ALSO:

Anthropic’s IPO is about six times oversubscribed, Bloomberg reports. Nvidia has agreed to buy about USD 10 bn of shares in it. More in Planet Finance below.
A Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, and other 365 apps for more than five hours, with nearly 130k reports at its peak. Microsoft says there’s no sign of a cyberattack, the Guardian reports.

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2

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Dubai and Abu Dhabi want 4k driverless cars, but the rollout hinges on public trust, insurance, and nuanced regulations

A clip of a driverless Uber stuck in the middle of a Dubai intersection, facing the wrong way while traffic moved around it, was shared more than 36k times this week. The clip, posted on Instagram, shows the limit of where self-driving technology stands today: the vehicles do well on familiar, mapped routes but can struggle when something unexpected happens. The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) says it is investigating with the operator. The incident raises the questions regulators and operators will face more often as fleets grow: who is responsible when an autonomous vehicle fails on a public road, and are the rules and the roads ready for it?

The current state of play: Dubai had 160 self-driving vehicles on its roads as of last month. It’s targeting 4k by 2030, when it wants a quarter of all trips to be autonomous. Baidu’s Apollo Go signed with the RTA in April last year to put 1k driverless cabs on Dubai’s roads by 2026, its first expansion outside Greater China. WeRide has been running driverless taxis on Yas Island since November 2025. It has since expanded with Uber into Khalifa City, Masdar City, and Rabdan and signed up to run robotaxis and robobuses on Ras Al Khaimah’s Al Marjan Island. Pony.ai has its own partnership with the RTA. Uber is the common link, offering both WeRide and Apollo Go rides through its app.

The rollout has not been smooth sailing: Besides the viral videos of things going wrong, the rollout hasn’t kept pace with targets. Dubai’s commercial launch in March put 100 driverless taxis on the road, limited to Umm Suqeim and Jumeirah, after the war forced WeRide to pull its fleet. As of last month, the whole emirate had 160 self-driving vehicles, against the 1k Apollo Go alone had targeted by this year.

Part of the reason is that the cars only work inside set zones: Most of the self-driving vehicles on UAE roads are Level 4: they drive with no human input, but only within a defined area.

SOUND SMART- Level 4 autonomy means a vehicle can drive itself without a human taking over, but only within an approved zone, known as its operational design domain. Level 5, which can drive anywhere, doesn’t exist commercially yet.

That limit can work in an operator’s favor: A tight zone with strong demand and busy vehicles can be worth more than wide coverage with weak demand, according to Simon-Kucher. In other words, “maximum autonomy does not automatically create maximum commercial value,” the consultancy writes. That is a problem for any plan to make autonomous vehicles cover a whole city: the more ground an operator covers, the harder it becomes to make money.

Abu Dhabi has a later target, but its rollout started earlier. It wants autonomous vehicles to handle 25% of trips by 2040, a decade after Dubai. But it issued the Middle East’s first two fully driverless commercial permits in November 2025. One went to WeRide, operating with Uber and Tawasul. The other went to K2’s AutoGo, operating with Baidu’s Apollo Go. By February, more than 120 Level 4 vehicles were running without safety drivers, and the WeRide and Uber network covered about half of the capital’s core urban area. AutoGo moved to full commercial operations on Yas Island in March, with Reem, Al Maryah, and Saadiyat next.

Are we ready for autonomous vehicles?

K2 says Abu Dhabi already has what’s needed to run fleets at scale, infrastructure-wise. We asked about dynamic traffic signals, digitized roads, and systems that let vehicles communicate with the road. “All of these exist today in Abu Dhabi,” Waleed Alblooshi, vice president of strategy at Abu Dhabi’s K2, told us earlier this year.

Dubai is also in the process of building that infrastructure: The RTA is connecting all 620 of the emirate’s signalized junctions directly to vehicles so cars can receive live signal and road data. Full deployment is expected in 2027-2028. Separately, an AI-run signal system was due to be installed at about 300 junctions by the third quarter of this year.

And its testing capacity is ready: In September, the RTA opened Dubai Mobility Labs at Dubai Silicon Oasis. It’s a proving ground that puts vehicles through 248 traffic and weather scenarios before they reach public roads. Germany’s Dekra will run it for its first three years, and WeRide, Pony.ai, and Tesla have already tested there. Dubai still clears roads for some trials, though. In late October, it shut three lanes of Emirates Road during peak hours so robotaxis could be tested without other traffic.

Some argue driverless vehicles will make UAE roads safer. One estimate cited by Al Tamimi & Co partner Andrew Fawcett puts the possible reduction in road fatalities at up to 90%.

But there are downsides: Robotaxis “still occupy road space and contribute to congestion,” Martin Tillman, founder of transport and mobility planning advisory firm TMP Consult, tells us, especially on the empty trips between passengers.

It’s more of a trust problem: “The biggest gap we see right now is in consumer education,” Alblooshi says. “Riders might feel anxious at first with the experience, but they will grow to see its value.”

Are the rules ready?

National rules exist, but permits are still issued emirate by emirate. The Cabinet approved national rules in September for testing, inspecting, registering, and licensing autonomous vehicles. Operating permits are still issued by each emirate. Dubai has had a dedicated law since 2023. Abu Dhabi grants permits only once a vehicle passes safety, readiness, and performance testing, Consilium Advisors founder Ankita Dhawan tells us. A license doesn’t carry over from one emirate to another, so an operator expanding to a new emirate goes through approval again.

In Dubai, the operator is liable for any injury or property damage its vehicles cause, Dhawan says. The operator then has to pass that risk on to the companies that supply the technology.

That arrangement will decide how quickly fleets grow: “Operators will expand supply based on whether liability can be passed back up the chain when a loss is legitimately attributable to the technology provider, and whether insurers will underwrite fleet-level and software-failure risk at a price the unit economics can absorb,” she says. She expects that “as it becomes more mainstream, liability questions will settle and the framework will become more predictable.”

Abu Dhabi has moved fast: K2 went “from conceptual to operational” in less than a year, Alblooshi said. K2 says none of the permitting requirements have been “particularly challenging.” At the time we spoke, Alblooshi said the company still relies on a safety driver in the passenger seat and a command center that monitors every vehicle. That’s because the stakes are much higher with buses: a failure on a fixed route carrying 20 passengers creates a different liability problem from a failure in a two-seat robotaxi.

Buses are the next regulatory question: K2 and WeRide are preparing 20-seat robobuses for Yas Island and UAE University. Even K2 says they will need their own rules. “We do need a distinct regulatory framework,” Alblooshi said.

What’s next

Tillman sees “shared autonomous services integrated with high-capacity public transport” as the better long-term play. NYU Abu Dhabi professor of civil and urban engineering and director of the CITIES Research Center Monica Menendez also agrees that the vehicles are “most useful when they help complete journeys that the main network cannot serve as conveniently.” That means connecting with the metro and buses rather than competing with them. It also addresses a gap we’ve flagged in earlier coverage: experts told us the overall effectiveness of the public transportation network build-out will largely be judged on how easy it is for people to get to and from the station.

A wider rollout in any case depends on “public trust, which drives demand, and regulatory enablement, which unlocks supply through permits, approved operating zones, and routes,” Dhawan tells us. That trust is “fragile,” she tells us. It depends on how operators behave and how they respond to incidents like this week’s.

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automotive infrastructure Mobility THE BIG STORY TODAY transport

3

EARNINGS WATCH

A sea of earnings from Fertiglobe, EGA, Emsteel, Dewa, Adnoc L&S, Space42, and Spinneys

Logistics costs squeeze Fertiglobe’s margins

Abu Dhabi fertilizer giant Fertiglobe’s 3Q revenue rose 19% y-o-y to USD 904.5 mn, but its net income attributable to shareholders dipped 90% to USD 22.7 mn, according to the company’s financial statements (pdf). Adjusted for one-off items, net income fell a smaller 62% to USD 51 mn. Higher ammonia prices and sales volumes lifted revenue, more than offsetting lower urea prices and a planned maintenance shutdown at its EBIC plant in Egypt. But sharply higher logistics and operating costs squeezed margins, Fertiglobe said in its management discussion and analysis report (pdf).

Exports from the UAE recovered: 95% of its UAE production was exported in 3Q, up from just 56% in 2Q. Now that the EBIC maintenance is done, Fertiglobe expects the plant’s ammonia output to rise by about 20%.

Zooming out to 9M: The broader 2026 picture is notably rosier. Over 9M, revenue jumped 44% y-o-y to USD 2.9 bn, while adjusted net income increased 56% to USD 341 mn. It closed out the nine-month period with its bottom line up 29.3% to USD 547.7 mn.

Emsteel’s pricing power is starting to fade

Emsteel’s net income nearly doubled y-o-y to AED 190 mn in 3Q 2026 as revenue rose 15% to AED 2.5 bn, according to the company’s management discussion and analysis report (pdf). Higher selling prices helped offset weaker steel volumes, but the quarter lost momentum from 2Q, with net income down 27% q-o-q as regional disruption pushed up raw material and logistics costs.

Steel did more with less volume, as division revenue rose 15% y-o-y to AED 2.2 bn even as sales volumes fell 5% to 770k tonnes because exports of heavy sections and sheet piles were constrained. A 17% rise in average selling prices for finished steel more than made up the difference. Those higher prices had already helped Emsteel absorb rising costs in 2Q, but by 3Q the cushion was getting thinner. Raw materials bought cheaply earlier in the year were being replaced by pricier supplies shipped through longer alternative routes. That pulled the division’s EBITDA margin down to 13.7% from 18.2% in 2Q, though it was still up from 11.9% a year earlier.

Cement had a better quarter: Division revenue rose 12% to AED 252 mn on 12% higher volumes, and its EBITDA margin widened to 29.7% from 23.3%.

On a 9M basis, net income climbed 165% y-o-y to AED 751 mn, widening the net margin to 10.7% from 4.4%, while revenue rose 9% to AED 7 bn. The wider margin recovery started in 1Q, when cheaper raw materials and stronger pricing lifted earnings despite softer steel volumes. The 3Q results show that cost tailwinds are beginning to unwind as disrupted logistics make replacement supplies more expensive.

Tanker windfall for Adnoc L&S

Higher charter rates and a larger fleet lifted Adnoc Logistics & Services’ 3Q net income 321% y-o-y to USD 887 mn, according to the company’s financials (pdf). Net income was still about 7% below 2Q’s record USD 951 mn, by our math. Revenue rose 149% y-o-y to USD 3.3 bn.

Shipping did all the work: Segment revenue nearly quintupled to USD 2.7 bn. Tankers brought in USD 2.1 bn (up 358%), and gas carrier revenue jumped 855% to USD 433 mn on new LNG contracts and three second-hand VLGCs. Integrated logistics went the other way, with revenue down 18% to USD 545 mn and net income down 37% to USD 87 mn, after the G-Island offshore project wrapped up in late 2025.

The 9M picture: Net income rose 227% to USD 2.1 bn over the first nine months of the year, while revenue climbed 82% to almost USD 7 bn.

Adnoc L&S has roughly tripled its full-year income growth guidance. It now expects 2026 net income to grow in the low-360% range, up from the high-110% range it guided to previously. It raised revenue growth guidance to the low-100% range from the mid-20% range and expects shipping revenue to grow in the mid-270% range.

IN CONTEXT- The company has committed roughly USD 3 bn to vessel acquisitions and newbuilds this year, by our count, including a USD 1.3 bn purchase of 11 large carriers in August. In 3Q, it took delivery of six VLCCs, three VLGCs, a VLAC, and four dry bulk vessels — and ten more vessels are due in 4Q.

Demand shows up for Dewa in 3Q

Dewa’s net income rose 9.2% y-o-y to AED 4.3 bn in 3Q 2026, outpacing a 5.4% rise in revenue to AED 10.9 bn, according to the company’s financial statements (pdf). Operating income slipped 3.2% to AED 4.5 bn as administrative expenses jumped 36%, while finance income rose more than fivefold to AED 1.2 bn. That turned a net finance cost of AED 157 mn a year earlier into net income of AED 436 mn.

Demand was still doing its part: Electricity revenue rose 5.4% y-o-y to AED 7.3 bn, water revenue increased 5.1% to AED 1.7 bn, and district cooling revenue grew 4.1% to AED 1.2 bn. That’s a recovery from 2Q, when revenue fell 2.6% and net income was broadly flat. Dewa’s customer base grew 5.5% y-o-y to 1.38 mn accounts.

For the first nine months, net income rose 11.7% y-o-y to AED 7.6 bn, while revenue increased 3.3% to AED 25.7 bn. Dewa also paid AED 3.1 bn to shareholders in October for 1H 2026, in line with its minimum AED 6.2 bn annual dividend policy, it said in its earnings release (pdf). Earlier this year, it raised its stake in Empower to 80% in a AED 5.2 bn transaction, increasing its share of the district-cooling company’s earnings.

Smart Solutions flips the script for Space42 in 3Q

Space42’s net income attributable to shareholders rose to USD 31.1 mn from USD 0.3 mn a year earlier, as revenue rose 6.2% y-o-y to USD 144.6 mn, according to the company’s financial statements (pdf) and earnings release (pdf). The turnaround came largely from Smart Solutions, its geospatial and AI unit, which moved into the black after dragging heavily on the group a year earlier.

Smart Solutions finally stopped being the drag. The geospatial and AI unit generated USD 5.2 mn in net income in 3Q, reversing a USD 25.1 mn loss a year earlier, as revenue climbed 18.5% to USD 29.3 mn. Its operating income swung to USD 6.0 mn from a USD 28.2 mn loss, helped by a sharp drop in project-delivery costs. That marks a major reversal from 3Q 2025, when Space42 was still restructuring Smart Solutions around Earth Observation and group earnings had fallen sharply.

Space Services still brings in most of the revenue: It accounted for USD 115.3 mn, or about 80% of the total, up 3.5%. That’s supported by Thuraya-4’s USD 700 mn, 15-year government capacity contract, which began in July 2025.

In 9M 2026, net income attributable to shareholders rose 31% to USD 49.4 mn on revenue up 11% to USD 404 mn. That means 3Q net income alone accounted for around two-thirds of YTD earnings, underscoring the weight of the Smart Solutions turnaround thanks to robust demand from government business.

Spinneys’ summer rebound lifts 3Q income

Spinneys’ 3Q revenue rose 6.9% y-o-y to AED 831 mn, while its net income climbed 18.6% to AED 49 mn as Dubai’s premium grocery retailer returned to growth after a difficult 2Q, according to Spinneys’ management discussion and analysis report (pdf). Gross income improved 5.7% to AED 345 mn, although cost of sales rose faster, by 8%. Selling, general, and administrative expenses climbed 6.3% to AED 204 mn.

Behind the numbers: More customers stayed in the UAE over the summer, CEO Sunil Kumar said, and like-for-like sales grew 3.3% over 9M. Fresh food made up 65.7% of sales and private label 47.6%, and online sales grew 24.5% y-o-y to 19.5% of revenue, from 16.6%. Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz lengthened shipping times, and that pushed inventory days up to 31, from 29.

On a 9M basis, revenue rose 5.7% to AED 2.7 bn, while net income increased 5.7% to AED 224 mn. Operating cashflow dipped 20.4% to AED 362 mn on inventory build-ups and Saudi partner settlements, leaving AED 685 mn in liquidity.

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4

MOVES

Lombard Odier taps UBS veteran Ali Harb for UAE, Oman wealth business

Swiss private bank Lombard Odier appointed Ali Harb (LinkedIn) as executive vice president to cover its UAE and Oman wealth management clients from Geneva, according to a company statement. Harb brings 22 years of experience, having spent 18 years at UBS in Geneva following an earlier stint at BNP Paribas Suisse.

REMEMBER- Lombard Odier has been reshuffling its UAE operations: Lombard Odier announced plans to close its Abu Dhabi office last year while continuing to serve clients from Dubai.

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5

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

DP World locks in in Manila and Chile + Arada backs Brookfield and Lunate’s Alya

More in Manila for DP World

DP World’s Manila partner gets 25 more years at South Harbour: Asian Terminals (ATI), DP World’s partner in the Philippines, secured a 25-year extension to operate and develop Manila South Harbour, according to a statement. Under the agreement with the Philippine Ports Authority, ATI’s concession, which was due to expire in 2038, now runs to 2063. ATI plans further investment in terminal capacity, automation, energy-efficient cargo-handling equipment, and digital infrastructure.

The terminal has already been upgraded: DP World and ATI completed a USD 100 mn expansion of Manila South Harbour last year, extending Pier 3 to more than 600 meters, enlarging the container yard, and adding two ship-to-shore cranes. Annual handling capacity rose more than 25% to nearly 2 mn TEUs. The partners have since added 15 electric internal transfer vehicles, a USD 2.1 mn fleet, as part of a move to lower-emission operations.

And an extension at Chile’s busiest port secured

DP World is also extending its concession at the Port of San Antonio, Chile’s main port, by 10 years to 2041, under an agreement with state-owned Empresa Portuaria San Antonio (EPSA), Chilean trade outlet PortalPortuario reports. In return, DP World’s local unit will invest USD 227 mn in its Costanera-Espigón terminal over the next three years. With other planned works, the total comes to about USD 250 mn by the time the concession ends.

The details: Investments will be carried out over three years and are set to increase handling capacity by 300k TEUs annually, as well as bring dry bulk goods handling up to 1.8 mn tons.

Arada backs Alya

Sharjah developer Arada is teaming up with Alya, the luxury housing platform Brookfield and Lunate launched last week. Arada Capital, Arada’s planned fund management arm, has signed an MoU with Alya to co-invest in premium residential and mixed-use projects in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, according to a press release. The deal is still subject to due diligence, a final commercial agreement, and approvals.

The plan: The partners will start with two residential developments with a combined gross development value of about AED 6 bn, part of a larger pipeline they’ll evaluate together. They’re looking at sites in Downtown Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island. They haven’t said how the funding will be split, or named any Saudi projects.

A recap of who’s involved: Arada announced plans for Arada Capital in the summer, bringing institutional and qualified investors to its real estate pipeline and targeting USD 5 bn in AUM. Brookfield and Lunate launched Dubai-based Alya last week, targeting premium housing projects across the Gulf. The Saudi plan fits well with Arada’s footprint, after the developer made its KSA debut just last month with a USD 3.8 bn residential project in Riyadh.

Tags:

ALSO ON OUR RADAR Arada Arada Capital Brookfield DP World Dubai logistics Lunate Real estate

6

PLANET FINANCE

Anthropic’s IPO draws heavy demand — and could still fetch USD 1.5 tn valuation

Anthropic’s tn-USD moment is almost here. The Claude maker’s shares are expected to start trading on Nasdaq on or around 19 November at a price that would value the whole company at up to USD 1.4 tn — a bit less than some investors had hoped, Reuters reports. It’s only selling a small slice of itself, but that could still bring in as much as USD 64.4 bn, CNBC says. Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and other tech giants are buying an extra USD 26 bn of its shares.

Investors have put in orders for six times more stock than is for sale, Bloomberg reports, and bankers are now mulling whether to price the shares above the range, which could value Anthropic at USD 1.5 tn or more, the Financial Times adds. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are expected to price the offering on 18 November.

The timing is tricky: Investors will be watching how Anthropic’s shares sell to judge whether Wall Street is still bullish on AI. They’re a little jumpy right now. AI stocks have only partly bounced back from last week’s post-midterm selloff, as we noted on Tuesday.

SPEAKING OF WHICH- That selloff is already hitting Gulf wallets. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala may be down about USD 17.5 bn on its AI wagers since the end of June, while Saudi Arabia’s PIF is down about USD 5.64 bn, according to estimates by consultancy GlobalSWF first reported by Semafor.

Investors aren’t about to pull out of AI completely. If anything, lower prices could let long-term investors like these pick up more of some AI stocks. We’ve long argued that any air being let out of the AI bubble might be seen by Gulf sovereign funds as a chance to up their stakes in companies they see building a transformative technology.

Why this matters for the Gulf: Abu Dhabi’s state fund MGX and the Qatar Investment Authority already own pieces of Anthropic, so the company’s performance next week will affect Gulf public money. UAE investors are also leading OpenAI’s next funding round, which is why investors are watching Anthropic’s IPO for clues about how OpenAI might fare.

OpenAI’s numbers are a mixed bag. In 3Q 2026, it made USD 10 bn in sales in a single quarter for the first time ever, nearly 50% more than the quarter before, Bloomberg reports. But it also lost USD 10.9 bn over the same three months, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Take that with a grain of salt: OpenAI and Anthropic don’t use the same rules about how to count revenue. Anthropic includes the full value of the sales it makes through Amazon, Google, and Microsoft’s clouds, then books its partners’ cuts as an expense. OpenAI’s top line includes only what it keeps after Microsoft gets its cut.

MARKETS THIS MORNING-

Asian markets are mixed this morning, with South Korea’s Kospi (+2.0%) and Japan’s Nikkei (+1.7%) leading gains, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (-0.6%) and China’s CSI 300 (-0.2%) in the red. US futures are pointing to a stronger open, with Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.6% and S&P 500 and Dow futures up 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

ADX	9,726	+1.5% (YTD: -2.7%)
DFM	6,235	+0.2% (YTD: +3.1%)
Nasdaq Dubai UAE20	5,218	+2.1% (YTD: +6.7%)
USD : AED CBUAE	Buy 3.67	Sell 3.67
EIBOR	3.7% o/n	4.7% 1 yr
TASI	10,326	+0.2% (YTD: -1.6%)
EGX30	52,023	-0.9% (YTD: +24.3%)
S&P 500	7,592	-0.4% (YTD: +10.9%)
FTSE 100	10,863	+0.3% (YTD: +9.4%)
Euro Stoxx 50	6,399	+0.1% (YTD: +10.5%)
Brent crude	USD 95.82	+3.3%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 3.35	+0.3%
Gold	USD 3,895	+0.2%
BTC	USD 71,466	-3.3% (YTD: -19.5%)
Lunate JP Morgan UAE Bond UCITS ETF	AED 3.59	0.0% (YTD: +0.1%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	149.50	+0.1% (YTD: -1.6%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	18.70	+6.9% (YTD: +25.1%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The DFM rose 0.2% yesterday on turnover of AED 1.1 bn. The index is up 3.1% YTD.

In the green: Watania International Holding (+14.9%), Dubai Refreshment Company (+12.6%), and Dubai Islamic Ins. and Reinsurance Co. (+5.9%).

In the red: United Foods Company (-4.5%), Tecom Group (-3.1%), and DIP Holding (-1.7%).

Over on the ADX, the index rose 1.5% on turnover of AED 2.8 bn. Meanwhile, Nasdaq Dubai was up 2.1%.

Tags:

AI Anthropic IPO PLANET FINANCE

CALENDAR

NOVEMBER

4-16 November (Wednesday-Monday): ADIB rights trading period.

9-13 November (Monday-Friday): World Congress of Military Med, Adnec Center, Abu Dhabi.

10-24 November (Tuesday-Tuesday): ADIB rights issue subscription period.

16-17 November (Monday-Tuesday): The Mining Show, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

16-18 November (Monday-Wednesday): World Police Summit, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

17-18 November (Tuesday-Wednesday): Data Center World Middle East, Dusit Thani Hotel, Abu Dhabi.

18-19 November (Wednesday-Thursday): Touchdown Middle East 2026, Conrad Abu Dhabi Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi.

19-22 November (Thursday-Sunday): Frieze Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi. (19 November is invitation-only; public admission begins 20 November.)

19 November (Thursday): Middle East Defense Conference, Rabdan Academy Headquarters, Abu Dhabi.

23-26 November (Monday-Sunday): Big 5 Global, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

25-26 November (Saturday-Sunday): Doers Summit, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai.

DECEMBER

2-4 December (Wednesday-Friday): UN Water Conference, UAE.

4-6 December (Friday-Sunday): Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Abu Dhabi.

7 December (Monday): GITEX Scale Summit, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

8-11 December (Tuesday-Friday): GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star, Dubai Exhibition Centre, Expo City Dubai, Dubai.

8-9 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): Capital Market Summit, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai.

8-9 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Abu Dhabi Finance Week, Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi.

8-10 December (Tuesday-Thursday): Abu Dhabi Water & Power Week, Adnec Center, Abu Dhabi.

8-10 December (Tuesday-Thursday): Middle East & North Africa Business Aviation Association Show, DWC, Dubai Airshow Site.

10 December (Thursday): The deadline for Emaar Development shareholders to sell their shares to Emaar Properties at AED 15 per share.

11 December (Friday): Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens, Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi.

JANUARY 2027

1 January (Friday): Deadline for large businesses to implement e-invoicing.

1 January (Friday): Public holiday for New Year’s Day.

14-17 January (Thursday-Sunday): MOC27 Motor, Outdoor & Camping Festival, Dubai Sevens Stadium, Dubai.

FEBRUARY 2027

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): World Governments Summit.

2-3 February (Tuesday-Wednesday): MRO Middle East and Aircraft Interiors Middle East, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

MARCH 2027

31 March: Small businesses with annual revenues of less than AED 50 mn and government entities are required to appoint an accredited service provider for e-invoicing implementation. ;

Signposted to happen sometime in 1Q 2027: Completion of the first phase of Hassyan seawater desalination project

APRIL 2027

21-22 April (Wednesday-Thursday): Token2049, Dubai;

MAY 2027

11-13 May (Tuesday-Thursday): Middle East Energy, Expo City, Dubai.

31 May-2 June (Monday-Wednesday): RailX Dubai, Dubai World Trade Center, Dubai.

JULY 2027

1 July: Deadline for small businesses to implement e-invoicing.

OCTOBER 2027

1 October (Friday): Deadline for governments to implement e-invoicing;

NOVEMBER 2027

Signposted to happen sometime in November: HR Tech, Abu Dhabi.

Signposted to happen sometime in 2027: Abu Dhabi’s solar and battery energy facility, combining 5.2 GW of solar capacity and 19 GWh of battery storage, is set for commissioning.

Signposted to happen sometime in 2028:

Artificial Intelligence Summit.

Signposted to happen sometime in 2029:

Sibos 2029 organized by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), Dubai;
Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, Abu Dhabi;
The commissioning of the seventh phase of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park.

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