The Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs is responsible for the administration of all of the Kingdom’s municipalities – ranging from massive urban centres to smaller, more rural areas. A key focus of the Ministry is to ensure that each municipality enjoys the same standard of infrastructure quality and efficiency as the rest of…
The UAE’s financial sector is set for major changes ahead of what Bloomberg has called the biggest M&A deal in the Middle East. The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and First Gulf Bank (FGB) have agreed to merge, creating “the region’s largest lender”. The merger is expected to become effective in Q1 2017. According…
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) recently invested 2.45 billion USD into acquiring an office building in Singapore. QIA bought the 43-storey building, Asian Square Tower 1, from US based private equity firm BlackRock. It is the largest single-tower real estate transaction in the Asia Pacific region. The office tower is home to multiple well-known tenants,…
Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows peaked in 2015 to 1.76 trillion USD – the highest investment levels seen since the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The UN expects this figure to decline by between 10 and 15 percent this year. When FDI is broken down by sector, however, certain sectors are expected to do very well…
Ever since the historic Brexit vote, property firm Select Property has reportedly seen a 200 percent increase in enquiries about UK real estate from investors based in the GCC (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman). According to global financial advisory firm deVere, there was a 60 percent month-on-month increase in…
In H1 2016, foreign investors spent a total of 5.1 billion USD on apartment properties in the US. Investment into US apartments by foreign buyers has averaged 5.4 billion USD over the past ten years, and so the activity seen in H1 could be considered very healthy. However, it represents a dip in investment compared…
Venture capitalists based in the US are increasingly passing up the chance to invest in young startups, and choosing to invest into mature companies, preferably with proven business models. According to a report by research firm PitchBook Data, Q1 2016 saw the fewest number of seed-stage venture deals since 2013, with over half of all…
African tech startups received a total of over 185 million USD over the course of 2015. A significant proportion of this investment was dedicated to “social enterprises”, i.e. profit-making companies with social impact as their main goal. Some African entrepreneurs have voiced concern over the disproportionate amount of funding and attention given to these social…
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which has been the primary investment vehicle of the UAE government for the past 40 years, has seen a drop in its long-term gains. The fund’s assets are expected to drop to 475 billion USD at the end of 2016, down from an estimated 502 billion USD at the end…
The investment arm of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Mumtalakat Holding Company, has announced the recent successful acquisition of an equity stake in KOS Group, a European healthcare group that provides long-term care and rehabilitation services, as well as hospital equipment management, cancer care services and diagnostics. Based in Italy, KOS Group operates over 76 dedicated…