Partners Capital opens in Abu Dhabi with family business pact
Partners Capital, a London-based investment firm, has opened an office in Abu Dhabi and teamed up with a local business alliance to guide family-owned companies on improving their finances.
The firm, which has $75 billion under management and specializes in advising university endowments, foundations and family offices, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Family Business Council on Monday during a launch event at the St. Regis Abu Dhabi hotel. Among its clients are the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Guggenheim Foundation and New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Partners Capital CEO Arjun Raghavan said in an interview with The Circuit that the firm decided to go ahead with opening the Abu Dhabi office despite concerns about regional instability stemming from the Iran war.
“The question is: should we hit the pause button given what’s happened?” Raghavan said. “And our view was, it doesn’t make any sense to pause. This is what we want to do long-term, and now is as good a time as any.”
Family-owned businesses dominate much of the UAE economy, controlling major interests in sectors including retail, real estate, logistics, banking and industry. In recent years, both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have seen an influx of family investment offices from abroad, drawn by low taxes, light regulation and access to large pools of Gulf money.
Welcoming the investment firm on behalf of the government was Zaki Nusseibeh, Cultural Advisor to President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Chancellor of UAE University, who said the country is focused on supporting private businesses as it pushes to diversify the economy beyond oil.
“It is the private sector that will be driving growth from now on,” Nusseibeh said.
UAE quits OPEC
The UAE said it is quitting OPEC, delivering a powerful blow to the alliance amid disruptions to the global energy business triggered by the Iran war.
“This decision follows a comprehensive review of the UAE’s production policy and its current and future capacity and is based on our national interest and our commitment to contributing effectively to meeting the market’s pressing needs,” OPEC said on Tuesday in a statement carried by the UAE state news agency Wam.
The split with OPEC and the broader OPEC+ coalitiion, comes as Gulf producers struggle to move exports through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian threats and attacks have disrupted a key global sea channel and LNG transit route. The UAE said its departure will be effective May 1.
Tensions have been escalating since the UAE, the world’s seventh largest oil producer, criticized fellow Arab states for failing to adequately respond to Iranian attacks. Anwar Gargash, an advisor to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed publicly condemned what he described as weak political and military support from both the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League.
“During our time in the organization, we made significant contributions and even greater sacrifices for the benefit of all,” the OPEC statment said, “However, the time has come to focus our efforts on what our national interest dictates and our commitment to our investors, customers, partners and global energy markets. This is what we will focus on going forward.”
UAE sees fast track for alliance with U.S. on AI development
The UAE is eager to push ahead with the joint development plan on artificial intelligence that U.S. President Donald Trump announced during his visit to Abu Dhabi in May.
In a message on X posted Wednesday, UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba noted his country’s pledge for $1.4 trillion in investments focusing on American AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy and manufacturing.
“The UAE welcomes President Trump’s AI Action Plan and is ready to fast-track our strategic AI partnership with the U.S.,” Al Otaiba wrote. “We are collaboratively setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”
The ambassador called attention to the planned UAE-U.S. AI campus that UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed displayed to Trump, which will be able to provide a massive 5 gigawatts of power for AI data centers.
Also highlighted by Al Otaiba was a partnership deal agreed upon by Abu Dhabi’s G42 tech company, Oracle and the Cleveland Clinic to launch an AI-based global healthcare delivery platform.
In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the government launched its new National Artificial Intelligence Index on Wednesday to measure how agencies perform in terms of AI readiness and use of advanced data-driven technology.
