The Weekly Circuit

Public Investment Fund: Testing the waters of investor appetite amid geopolitical risk, Saudi Arabia’s PIF is making plans to issue dollar-denominated Sukuk, which are Shariah-compliant bonds. The bond issue by the kingdom’s $778 billion sovereign wealth fund would be the first since Israel and Hamas went to war in the Gaza Strip, sparking warnings from JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley about the conflict’s potential impact on business across the Middle East and North Africa region.

The PIF also unveiled its first major real estate development plans for the Aseer region in the southwest of the country on the border with Yemen. As with the mega-project NEOM, the newly launched Ardara project is actively seeking international investors and commercial partners to build from scratch hotels, restaurants, shops and infrastructure for culture and entertainment.

The Savola Group is mulling whether to sell part of its $5.4 billion stake in Almarai, the Middle East’s largest dairy company, Bloomberg reports. The PIF has a 16% interest in Almarai. 

Abu Dhabi Investment Office: ADIO has lured Archer Aviation to set up a Middle East headquarters and manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi, its first outpost outside the U.S. The company agreed to start an all-electric air taxi service in the UAE as soon as it gets approval to fly from the U.S. regulator. Mubadala Capital, an asset management subsidiary of sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment, backed Archer in a $600 million fundraising round that included United Airlines and investment banker Ken Moelis in 2021.

Mubadala: Financial results for Abu Dhabi’s second-largest sovereign wealth fund for the first half of 2023 are forthcoming after a board meeting chaired by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice president and deputy prime minister of the UAE. 

Emirates Investment Authority: Dubai’s Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, known as du, is working to build generative AI into its customer services, The National reports. The company is owned 50.1% by EIA.

🤖 Dr. Robot: M42, the Abu Dhabi-based healthcare unit created last year, has launched a new initiative that uses artificial intelligence to assist in medical decision-making.

💰 VC Rebound: Venture capital investing in the MENA region notched a “mild” recovery in the third quarter, though compared to the previous quarter it was a surge: up 87% compared to the second quarter, according to data from VC data platform Magnitt. 

🚆 Tunnel Vision: Morocco is studying the possibility of resurrecting a railway project that would link Casablanca to Madrid through a tunnel crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.

📡 Tapping Musk: Israel is in talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX about backing up its wartime communications with satellite-based Starlink, Bloomberg reports.

🚢 Canal Crossing: Egypt is planning to increase transit fees for ships using the Suez Canal by up to 15%, starting in mid-January.

⛟ Diversified Interests: Abu Dhabi holding company Multiply Group, with investments in Rihanna’s lingerie brand and Getty Images, is in talks to buy a stake in Turkish waste management firm Biotrend, Bloomberg reports.

💰 Accounted for: Following the introduction of corporate tax to the UAE, Virtuzone is investing $13.6 million in free tax services to small and medium sized businesses.

✈️ Flight Plan: Saudi Arabia will build a new international airport outside the city of Abha, which is in the southwestern region near the Red Sea and Yemen border.

🪖 Refugee Host: Egypt could be offered relief from its crippling debt to host hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the Gaza war, The Economist reports.

☀️ Heating Up: Global warming will raise temperatures in Saudi Arabia more than in most countries and pose new challenges for agriculture and society, a new report says. 

📈  Omani Offering: Oman’s government-owned OQ Gas Networks raised about $750 million in the Gulf state’s largest IPO ever.The government also plans to invest $30 billion on hydrogen-based energy technologies, aiming to reach its net zero goal for carbon emissions by 2050.

🐼 Panda Debt: Egypt issued $500 million worth of “sustainable” Panda bonds, which are issued in China’s currency and earmarked for financing environmental projects. Meanwhile, the government in Cairo is seeking an increase of more than $2 billion in the $3 billion rescue package it secured from the IMF, Bloomberg reports.

🛬 Crowded Skies: Abu Dhabi International Airport will open its new Terminal A building on Nov. 1 and double the airport’s capacity to 45 million passengers a year.

🚰 Water Ways: Saudi Arabia’s water treatment firm Miahona, a unit of the $50 billion Vision Invest holding company, is considering an IPO next year, Bloomberg reports.

💵 Rating Israel: Fitch warned about the possible impact of war on Israel’s economy, placing the country’s A+-rated currency on its Rating Watch Negative list.

🚢 Dead End: The Russian government canceled plans to build an industrial zone near the Suez Canal that was projected to attract $7 billion in investment.

🏭Iraqi Power: Iraq is launching a series of energy contracts signed with UAE-based Crescent Petroleum to develop three oil and gas fields across the country.

🥋 Martial Arts: The U.S.-based Professional Fighters League, which got $100 million in August from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is in talks to acquire its mixed martial arts competitor Bellator, the Financial Times reports.

Yasmeen Al Sharaf, director of innovation at the Central Bank of Bahrain, told Arabian Business over a third of management positions in the financial sector, which has surpassed oil and gas in economic contribution in the country, are held by Bahraini women. 

Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the ruler of the northern UAE emirate Ras Al Khaimah, led the UAE delegation to Beijing to mark the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Russian president Vladimir Putin is also in attendance and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is the only leader from the EU. 

Ray Dalio, billionaire American investor, has bought a penthouse on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island after opening an office for his hedge fund Bridgewater Associates in the capital’s financial district, Bloomberg reports.

Paddy Cosgrave, the Irish founder of the popular Web Summit scheduled for next month in Portugal, apologized for posting a critical comment about the Gaza war that prompted several prominent tech figures in Israel to pull out of the conference.

Martina Strong, U.S. ambassador to the UAE, met with over 300 business leaders at a reception in Dubai Monday evening that was hosted by the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council on the sidelines of the GITEX conference.

Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian telecoms billionaire, is considering an investment in Barrick Gold Corp.’s $7 billion copper-gold project in the Balochistan region that borders Afghanistan and Iran, Bloomberg reports.

Khalid Al Rumaihi was named chairman of Aluminum Bahrain, the largest aluminum smelter outside China and a unit of Bahrain sovereign wealth fund Mumtakalat.

Giselle Khoury, one of Lebanon’s most prominent female journalists and a veteran of the BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabia and Al Arabiya, died in Beirut at 62.