The Weekly Circuit: NEOM takes Manhattan + Neumann wants WeWork back

 👋 Hello from the Middle East!

This week we’re looking at Adam Neumann’s attempt to buy back WeWork, Boeing’s move to Saudi Arabia, McKinsey and BCG under U.S. Senate scrutiny for work with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and new details about Emaar’s Dubai Square development. But first, why NEOM wants to make it in New York.

Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion NEOM project, which is trying to reinvent the urban landscape almost from scratch, has placed its U.S. headquarters smack in the middle of New York City. The office in New York’s Hudson Yards on the Manhattan waterfront will enable NEOM’s managers to connect with Wall Street, drawing investors, industry leaders and candidates for executive posts.

NEOM’S The Line, a 110-mile city-in-the-making parallel to the Red Sea coast, and its luxury Trojena ski resort in the Tabuk mountains, aim to rewrite rules of engineering and conceptions of what is possible in the desert kingdom. Princess Reema bint Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., formally opened the office on Tuesday, calling NEOM, “an inspiration for ambitious projects around the world, as it represents a unique model for future cities.”

WeWork founder Adam Neumann, who turned the shared office-space market into a global phenomenon only to be squeezed out amid a failed IPO, is trying to buy the firm out of bankruptcy. Neumann has sought over the past several months to purchase the business through his new real estate company, Flow Global, and to provide bankruptcy financing to keep it operating, The New York Times reported in its Dealbook section. Dan Loeb, the New York investor and founder of Three Point Management, has been working with Neumann on the deal.

Boeing Co., the world’s second-largest commercial aircraft manufacturer, has applied for a license to establish its Middle East headquarters in Riyadh, Bloomberg reports. The move comes as international companies seek to comply with Saudi Arabia’s new rules requiring that they shift their main regional office to Saudi Arabia or risk being cut off from government contracts. Companies that have been licensed to set up regional hubs in Saudi Arabia include Airbus, Oracle and Pfizer.

Executives from McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Teneo Strategy faced questions on Tuesday from a U.S. Senate committee for their lack of cooperation with an investigation into the merger of the PGA Tour with the Public Investment Fund-backed LIV Golf. BCG’s Rich Lesser, McKinsey’s Bob Sternfels and Teneo CEO Paul Keary testified that their employees in Saudi Arabia could face jail if the firms handed over details of their work for the country’s sovereign wealth fund without approval from the kingdom, the Financial Times reports.

Emaar Properties, the UAE developer that built the 162-story Burj Khalifa – already the world’s biggest skyscraper – has scrapped plans to build an even taller tower rising 1 kilometer high. Instead, Emaar founder Mohammed Alabbar disclosed at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival on Sunday that his company will build a 50-story building overlooking the Dubai Creek that will anchor a new downtown shopping district and exude savoir faire. “In elegance, it reminds you of Marilyn Monroe,” he said. As for a mall that will be built at the foot of the tower, Alabbar said shoppers in electric cars will be welcome to drive through the corridors.

Welcome to The Weekly Circuit. Read on for the stories, deals and players at the top of the news across the MENA business landscape. Please send comments and story tips to [email protected].

FUTURE FACTORY

Saudi Arabia taps ex-Dell executive as CEO of new manufacturing powerhouse

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Saudi Arabia has tapped an ex-Dell Technologies executive to lead the recently formed Public Investment Fund company Alat, an industrial electronics company with $100 billion in backing that aims to become a local manufacturing powerhouse, The Circuit’s Kelsey Warner reports. 

Riyadh-made robots: Global CEO Amit Midha will lead the ambitious plans for the new manufacturing hub in the kingdom. Chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Alat is targeting the creation of 39,000 direct jobs in Saudi Arabia and a $9.3 billion contribution to GDP by 2030. The company is launching with more than 30 product categories including robotics, computing and digital entertainment, as well as advanced heavy machinery. 

Net-zero ambitions: Alat, which will officially open for business on Feb. 20, also has a sustainability component and plans to work with global companies to reduce their emissions and move towards zero-carbon manufacturing.

Legacy past: “We will passionately use technology to transform business,” Midha said in a statement on Tuesday. He comes to Riyadh from Singapore, off the back of a nearly 17-year career at Dell, where he joined in 2006 when the Red Rock, Tex. company was the world’s biggest PC maker. 

Click here to read the full story.

Public Investment Fund: The Saudi sovereign wealth fund and its portfolio companies have attracted $25.6 billion worth of investments in less than three years, according to its Governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan. The kingdom has set a goal to derive 65% of its GDP from private business activities by 2030, Al-Rumayyan said. The Private Sector Forum, hosted by the PIF, got underway in Riyadh on Tuesday with the sovereign wealth fund showcasing its portfolio companies to potential private sector investors and collaborators. The PIF is in talks to buy a stake in four U.K. Premiership rugby clubs that could be worth a combined $77 million, the Daily Mail reports. 

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority: ADIA is mulling the purchase of a minority stake in Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s mall operator, Bloomberg reports. Private equity firm PAG and other investors hold a combined 60% in China’s Zhuhai Wanda, the world’s largest mall operator by square footage. ADIA’s return on investment reached 17.3% last year, buoyed by high oil prices and up from 16.4% in 2022, Global SWF reports.  

Mubadala: The sovereign wealth fund is partnering with Aldar, Abu Dhabi’s biggest developer, to build an office tower on Al Maryah Island, the capital’s financial center. The plan is part of Aldar’s larger development push to deploy $1.4 billion on a range of retail, commercial and residential assets across the emirate. The Abu Dhabi fund was part of a consortium of investors that bought an 8% stake in India’s Manipal Health Enterprises from Temasek, the investment arm of the Singaporean government. Temasek acquired control of Manipal last year when it paid $2 billion for a 41% stake in the company. With the sell-off, Tamasek now owns 51%. The UAE’s biggest lender beat analysts’ estimates reporting earnings. First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), whose largest shareholder is Mubadala, made a net profit of $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 and reported annual profits were up 22% year-on-year, according to a statement last week to ADX where its shares trade. 

Qatar Investment Authority: The Real Deal looks at how the Qatari sovereign wealth fund plunged $45 billion into the Manhattan property market over the past 16 years to become New York City’s largest foreign investor.

 🛏️ Hotel Mecca: Dubai-based Jumeirah Group opened its first hotel in Saudi Arabia, the Jumeirah Jabal Omar in the holy city of Mecca, as the company seeks to expand in the Middle East.

💻 Still Working: Israeli entrepreneurs discuss maintaining business ties in the UAE amid the war in Gaza in a new Financial Times feature. 

🛍️ Modern Mall: The technology-centric plans for Dubai Square, a residential, retail and hospitality development equal in size to Dubai Mall from Emaar, were revealed at a workshop with CEO Mohamed Alabbar in Dubai on Wednesday. 

📱 Tech Fest: Web Summit Qatar expects 12,500 participants at its conference starting Feb. 26, almost double initial estimates, Sheikh Jassim bin Mansour Al Thani, chairman of the organizing committee said.

💊 Active Ingredients: Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world’s biggest maker of generic drugs, said it will put its active pharmaceutical ingredients business up for sale.

📈 Going Public: Oman’s state energy firm OQ SAOC has asked banks to pitch for roles on the initial public offerings of two of its units, as the sultanate pushes ahead with an ambitious privatization strategy, Bloomberg reports.

🦾 Local Defense: Under a localization agreement, U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin has awarded two key subcontracts to Saudi Arabia for certain components in its anti-ballistic missile defense system known as THAAD, Reuters reports.

🇪🇬 To the Rescue: The IMF is “very close” to reaching terms with Egypt on a new loan package to keep its economy afloat, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.

💰 Hedge Fund Hub: London-based Eisler Capital plans to open an office in Dubai, the latest in a string of hedge funds setting up shop in the UAE, Bloomberg reports.

🚢 Trading Terminals: Saudi Arabia boosted oil exports from its Muajjiz terminal in Medina last month as part of an effort to avoid areas in the southern Red Sea that have been attacked by Yemeni Houthi militants, Bloomberg reports.  

🌍 Expat Heaven: The UAE is the world’s top destination for expats seeking work visas, according to a report by the HR platform Deel analyzing data from 160 countries.

🌊 City Sites: Saudi Arabia’s western port city of Jeddah signed $3.2 billion in contracts to build several new projects, including an opera house, a stadium and an oceanarium.

🇮🇷 Ties that Bind: Iranian military officials attended the World Defense Show in Saudi Arabia this week, indicating that ties between the rivals are growing, Bloomberg reports.

🚘Kushner’s Cars: Affinity Partners, the Gulf-backed private equity fund led by Jared Kushner, has completed its $110 million purchase of a 15% stake in Israel’s Shlomo Group automotive and financing business, Calcalist reports.  

🚢 Ships ‘R’ Us: AD Ports Group in the UAE signed a 25-year deal with Pakistan’s Karachi Port Trust to develop, operate and manage its terminals. 

🏢 No Confidence: Three board members at Apex Investment, formerly known as Ras Al Khaimah Cement, resigned just days after the company reported $16 million in losses. 

🤖 Network Guardian: Oasis Security, an Israeli startup that smokes out hostile bots, raised $35 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. 

📈 Sustainable Stocks: The Amman Stock Exchange expects to launch an environmental sustainability index for Jordanian companies under its plan to integrate this year with Abu Dhabi’s ADX market, CEO Mazen Wathaifi told CNBC Arabia. 

🏈 Super Bowl Platform: Israel’s Papaya Global plans to unveil its new workforce payments platform this coming Sunday in a 30-second Super Bowl ad that may cost $7 million.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will take part in next week’s World Government Summit in Dubai, organizers announced on Tuesday.

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed traveled to Jordan for an official visit. He was received at the airport by King Abdullah II, Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah and a retinue of cabinet members. 

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Defense Khalid bin Salman was present alongside South Korea’s Defense Minister Shin Won-sik for a preliminary agreement to boost defense cooperation, on the sidelines of the World Defense Show in Riyadh earlier this week. Shin also held talks with Abdullah bin Bandar Al Saud, the minister of Saudi Arabia’s National Guard.  

UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed met with Barbara Leaf, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, in Abu Dhabi on Saturday. The meeting was also attended by Reem Ebrahim Al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation; and Lana Nusseibeh, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs and Ambassador to the United Nations. 

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, the Ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the UAE, announced the new “Zero Government Bureaucracy Programme” that aims to cut red tape across a broad range of state services. 

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, announced that the emirate welcomed a record 17 million visitors last year, up more than 19% from 2022.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed chaired the Advanced Technology Research Council’s board meeting last week and approved initiatives to encourage research and development activity in the emirate. 

OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al-Ghais is in Goa, India for the second annual India Energy Week which is focused on the energy transition.  

Gil Shwed, co-founder of Check Point Software Technologies, will step down as CEO of the Israeli cybersecurity company and assume the position of executive chairman.

Hafize Gaye Erkan, governor of Turkey’s central bank, resigned after less than a year in office, citing a “character assassination campaign” against her. Fatih Karahan, a former deputy governor of the bank and former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was named Erkan’s successor. He faces rising inflation as he takes up the post.

Ariel Sterman has been promoted to partner at Bessemer Venture Partners’ Tel Aviv office, focusing on investments in Israel and Europe.

Tennis fan favorites Ons Jabeur and Naomi Osaka were eliminated from doubles competition at the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open on Tuesday, beaten in straight sets by Magda Linette and Bernarda Pera.

French chef Alain Ducasse has opened a pop-up restaurant in Saudi Arabia’s ancient desert city of AlUla, which has drawn a bounty of government investment to turn the site into a magnet for tourism. 

John Podesta, former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, was named by President Joe Biden as Special Envoy for Climate, replacing John Kerry, who helped broker the agreement at the U.N.’s COP28 summit in Dubai on reducing use of fossil fuels.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett joined the board of Lasso Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that defends generative AI systems against hackers. Bennett was also appointed last year to the board of Quantum Source, which develops technology for photonics and quantum computing. 

🎾 Tennis Titans: Saudi Arabia will host a new tennis tournament in October titled “6 Kings Slam,” in which No. 1-ranked Novak Dejokovik, No. 2 Carl Alcaraz and Grand Slam winner Rafa Nadal will compete for an as-yet undisclosed cash prize. 

⚽ Penalty Kick: Saudi Arabia is having more trouble recruiting international soccer stars this season than in 2023 because of complaints from veteran players about the pro league’s facility standards and isolated social life, The Athletic reports. 

🏟️ Arabian Arena: Populous, the architecture firm building the new Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium outside Riyadh, released a super-cool animated video showing what the futuristic project will look like when completed. 

🎨 Venice Return: Eight works by Emirati conceptual artist Abdullah Al Saadi will be exhibited in The National Pavilion UAE at the Venice Art Biennale 2024. The exhibition, titled Abdullah Al Saadi: Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia, explores Al Saadi’s journeys into the wilderness, The National reports. This year marks the eighth time the UAE has taken part in the festival, one of the world’s most important contemporary visual art exhibitions. It will be held between April 20 and Nov. 24. 

Feb. 3-11, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open. WTA brings top women tennis players to the nine-day tournament. International Tennis Center, Zayed Sports City. 

Feb. 7-8, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: PIF Private Sector Forum. The gathering will showcase the Public Investment Fund and its portfolio companies’ business opportunities. King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center. 

Feb. 9-11, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Middle East Comic Con. Nerds unite for the biggest pop culture gathering in the region. Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Center. 

Feb. 12-13, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Global Smart City Forum. AI and smart city experts convene to discuss the future of these cities and their impact on communities. The Arena.

Feb. 12-14, Dubai, UAE: World Governments Summit. Artificial intelligence takes center stage this year at the global gathering. Madinat Jumeirah.

Feb. 16-18, Munich, Germany: Munich Security Conference. Defense industry, foreign policy and national security leaders gather for the annual summit. Hotel Bayerischer Hof. 

Feb. 19-20, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Capital Markets Forum. A gathering of government ministers, banks and local publicly traded companies to discuss integrating emerging markets with established financial systems. King Abdullah Financial District.

Feb. 21-22, Dubai, UAE: Step Conference. The Dubai edition of the leading tech festival for emerging markets. Internet City.

Feb. 22-23, Miami Beach, FL: FII Priority Miami. A summit on disruptive technology and investment trends hosted by the Future Investment Initiative Institute. Faena Hotel Miami Beach.

Feb. 26-29, Doha, Qatar: Web Summit Qatar. A Middle East edition of the technology crowd mega-event, gathering investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders. Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre. 

Feb. 28-29, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Investopia. A gathering of investors hosted by SALT and Investopia, an investment platform launched by the UAE Ministry of Economy and backed by Mubadala and the Department of Economic Development. St. Regis Saadiyat.

March 1, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Abu Dhabi Family Office Summit. One of the largest meetings in the region for family office leaders and investors. Saadiyat Rotana.  

March 4-7, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: LEAP. A global technology conference for developers, startups, investors, C-suite and media. King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center. 

March 5-6, Doha, Qatar: International LNG Forum. Gathering of industry leaders and key stakeholders to discuss the future of gas in a key export market. InterContinental Doha Beach. 

Adam Neumann tries to buy WeWork out of bankruptcy

WeWork founder Adam Neumann, who turned the shared office-space market into a global phenomenon only to be squeezed out amid a failed IPO, is trying to buy the firm out of bankruptcy.

Neumann has sought over the past several months to purchase the business through his new real estate company, Flow Global, and to provide bankruptcy financing to keep it operating, The New York Times reported in its Dealbook section. Dan Loeb, the New York investor and founder of Three Point Management, has been working with Neumann on the deal,

The 44-year-old Israeli Navy veteran built WeWork into a sprawling international real estate company once valued at $47 billion before it crumbled in 2019 and he was forced out by the board as CEO. As the company grew, Neumann was backed by Japan’s Softbank and its first Vision fund, which raised billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co.

Investors dream big at Saudi-backed Florida summit

From WeWork founder Adam Neumann and former White House advisor Jared Kushner to LIV Golf Commissioner Greg Norman, a parade of investors and entrepreneurs mounted a stage in Miami Beach, Fla., last week to talk about why Saudi Arabia looms large in their future business plans.

Neumann, now building a residential real estate business called Flow that secured $350 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, told the Future Investment Initiative’s Global Priority Summit on Friday that he sees the desert kingdom as an ideal environment for reinventing the way people live and work.

“What’s happening in Saudi right now is they’re dreaming up cities,” the 43-year-old Israeli who popularized the concept of shared office space said in an onstage conversation with investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. “You’re starting from scratch. And that’s unbelievable, because you can apply the right technology and the right energy from the first day.”

Neumann, who also spoke about difficult personal lessons he drew after getting ousted as WeWork CEO in 2019, was among the most anticipated speakers at the two-day meeting sponsored by FII, a spinoff of the group’s annual economic conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that is colloquially known as Davos in the Desert. Both are backed by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, a $650 billion sovereign wealth fund whose investments run from crypto startups and gaming studios to the upstart LIV Golf league.

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of PIF and chairman of state oil company Saudi Aramco, opened the proceedings on Thursday by saying he expects the PIF to grow to $1 trillion in assets by 2025 and between $2 trillion and $3 trillion by 2030. As head of Aramco, whose 2022 net income of $161 billion was the highest of any publicly traded company in the world, Al-Rumayyan said the company is committed to mitigating climate change but that shifting to sustainable energy sources needs to be gradual.

“Some of the governments around the world bullied the oil and gas companies,” Al-Rumayyan said. “It takes time to have a transition from fossil fuels to renewables.”

The Miami conference comes amid efforts by Americans and Saudis to ease tensions between the two countries, which have been close allies for more than seven decades.

Kushner, founder of Affinity Equity Partners, which has received a reported $2 billion in investment from the PIF, said he sees great opportunities in both the Saudi kingdom and the Florida city where he moved after departing the White House.

“I think Saudi Arabia and Miami are two places in the world that are shining examples of places that are on the rise, places that are not locked down by the past, places that are open-minded, [where] people are coming together,” he said.

Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who opened the conference alongside Al-Rumayyan, said he learned about the opportunities in Saudi Arabia when he attended the three-day Riyadh meeting in October, which drew more than 6,000 participants, and agreed to host the Priority Summit in his city. Notable attendees  included investors Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management, Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, Josh Harris of 26North and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital.

Reflecting on the Abraham Accords, the 2020 set of agreements he spearheaded to normalize Israel’s relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, Kushner said he was gratified to see regional political changes leading to wider commercial opportunities.

“The practical implications have been tremendous right now,” he said. “You have business happening in the Middle East that would not have been… you have defense agreements that are happening, which wouldn’t happen… The biggest thing for me is really two things. Number one is you’re seeing Arabs now, finally, and Muslims being able to say nice things about Israel and Jews, and you’re having human-to-human connections, which I think is now finally pushing back against the opposition, which is hard.”

The interfaith element was also picked up on by Tony Robbins, the best-selling author and motivational speaker, who closed out the conference’s final session on Friday, remarking on the confluence of Ramadan, Passover and Easter this week. Islam, Judaism and Christianity, he said, have given us “universal principles that have guided human behavior and helped us make it through wars, make it through pandemics… through recessions and depressions.”

Before discussing his business and political ventures, Kushner opened his remarks by condemning the indictment of former President Donald Trump, which had been made public the night before. The New York Times, meanwhile, published a story on Thursday, revealing investments by the UAE and Qatar in both Affinity and Liberty Strategic Capital, a fund founded by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who also spoke at the conference.

In his appearance on Thursday, Mnuchin spoke mostly about the U.S. economy and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which was rescued and sold off by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“I think this was a complete failure of management, and it was also a failure of the regulators,” Mnuchin said. “This should have been seen way in advance, and it should never have occurred.”

The conference also heard from Tidjane Thiam, former CEO of Credit Suisse, who left the Zurich-based lender three years before its collapse last month. Thiam, now executive chairman of Freedom Acquisition Corp., said he sees the global economy as fundamentally strong and remains confident in the strength of the banking industry.

“It’s really a liquidity crisis that generally leads to the failure of an institution, not capital,” Thiam said in a panel discussion. “So, overall, I’m quite comfortable.”

Amid the backlash against cryptocurrencies following the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, industry leader Michael Novogratz said traders have become “energized” and he sees prices of Bitcoin and its peers rebounding.

“We’re seeing overseas lots of activities and domestic, a government that’s really trying to smash the industry,” Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, said on a panel. “Crypto started as the little person’s revolution — they didn’t trust governments,” he said. “You’re picking a fight with a crypto community that loves this technology and believes it almost with religious fervor.”  

Also speaking at the conference was Greg Norman, CEO and commissioner of the LIV Golf tournament, which is backed by the Saudi investment fund and has been sued by the established PGA tour for poaching its stars. Norman dismissed questions about the new golf tournament’s viability and said he was confident LIV would survive its battle with the PGA.

“A monopolist doesn’t like to be taken off its pedestal,” he said. “We’re not going to go anywhere.”

In his conversation with Neumann, Horowitz said he and Andreessen were excited about the enthusiastic reception and quick decision-making they found from Al-Rumayyan and Saudi Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, when they visited Riyadh last year.

“Within a week we had a half dozen really interesting meetings set up,” Horowitz said, adding that the two partners will be bringing executives from their venture capital portfolio companies to Saudi Arabia this month. “That’s what a startup feels like,” he said.

Gulf-Israel investors can weather discord by cultivating personal ties, Aleph’s Eisenberg says

As an early investor in WeWork, Michael Eisenberg says he doesn’t let the inevitable ups and downs of a young, disruptive company shake his faith when he strongly believes in its product.

Similarly, the co-founder of Tel Aviv-based venture capital fund Aleph is confident in Israel’s budding relationship with the Arab Gulf states and excited about the prospects the ties present for the more than 40 companies in his investment portfolio. Ongoing conflict with the Palestinians and lingering hostility even in countries such as Egypt and Jordan that signed peace treaties, he said, are unlikely to derail the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized Israel’s ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

“The Emiratis are relationship people and they believe in long-term relationships,” said Eisenberg, 51, a native New Yorker who immigrated to Israel after college and whose fund has about $850 million under management. “It will last if we build trust.”

Aleph’s stable of startups has proven attractive to Gulf investors. Freightos, an online marketplace that helps businesses find favorable sea and air cargo shipping rates, said last week that Qatar Airways is among its investors — together with FedEx and several airlines in Europe and Latin America. The disclosure came as Freightos agreed to merge with Tel Aviv-based Gesher, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that will give it a Nasdaq listing and a pro forma enterprise value of about $435 million. Freightos is registered in the Cayman Islands. It has offices in Jerusalem; Hong Kong; Barcelona, Spain; Miami, Florida; and Ramallah, in the West Bank.

Aleph itself was one of six funds chosen by Mubadala, the $250 billion sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, to distribute $100 million in investment to Israeli startups, according to the Wall Street Journal. Eisenberg declined to confirm the report, though he said Mubadala executives recently came to visit his team at Aleph’s airy downtown Tel Aviv office, which is in a restored century-old hotel on Rothschild Boulevard.

“I’m super bullish about the Emirates serving not only as a target market, not only as a place for joint ventures, but also as a gateway to Asia,” Eisenberg said. Saudi Arabia, which has many business ties with Israeli companies but has resisted the normalization drive, will come to terms with Israel eventually, he said. President Joe Biden is mulling plans to visit both Israel and Saudi Arabia next month.

The other funds distributing Mubadala Investment Co.’s money to Israeli technology companies are Mangrove Capital Partners, Entrée Capital, Viola Ventures, Pitango and MizMaa, according to the Journal.

Eisenberg stuck with WeWork in the shared-office space business even as other investors pulled out when a planned IPO was scrapped in October 2019. That sent the company’s market valuation plummeting from $47 billion to $8 billion and forced CEO Adam Neumann to resign. Neumann, a former Israeli Navy officer who acquired U.S. citizenship, raised billions of dollars from Japan’s Softbank Vision Fund, whose primary investors were Mubadala and the $600 billion Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. WeWork finally went public through a SPAC merger in October 2021 and is currently worth roughly $4.5 billion, down 18 percent since the end of last year.

“Very few people could have transformed the real estate market the way he did and if you walk into any office now, they’re all designed like WeWork,” Eisenberg said, noting that the company sells $3 billion in services annually. “You know, it takes a little bit of crazy to be an entrepreneur and be told ‘no’ all the time and be abused by the press all the time. And you know, God bless [Neumann] and God bless [new CEO] Sandeep Mathrani for taking it over.”

Eisenberg, an Orthodox Jew and Yeshiva University graduate who covers his head with a yarmulke and lives in Jerusalem, has eight children and writes books in Hebrew applying biblical wisdom to investing. His The Tree of Life and Prosperity: 21^st Century Business Principles from the Book of Genesis was published in English last year. His latest book, Milk, Honey and Uncertainty, hasn’t yet come out in translation. He said regular visits to the Gulf has given him a better appreciation of Islam and reinforced the belief he describes in his books as “respectful tribalism.”

Besides Freightos, Aleph’s interests include Windward, a favorite of risk managers that uses online mapping and artificial intelligence to track maritime traffic around the world. It trades on the London Stock Exchange and Eisenberg says the company has benefited from the global breakdown in shipping logistics.

“Business is good because whenever there are sanctions, you want to know what’s really happening on the seas,” he said. “Not just that, but at the same time we’ve had these COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the supply chain is all snarled up. People want to know, where are my goods?”

Other standouts in Eisenberg’s portfolio include empathy.com, an online platform that helps relatives handle the details of death, such as dealing with probate court, funeral arrangements and settling finances. Healthy.io, which developed a telemedicine app that enables patients with chronic kidney failure to take a urine test at home and deliver the data to a lab by smartphone for analysis, is another Aleph investment.

For Israel, much of the value of normalization with the Gulf is its geographical position and longtime experience as a platform to reach the most dynamic nations and business centers in Southeast Asia, including India and Indonesia, Eisenberg said.

“This whole Eastern Rim opens up to Israel via the Emirates, and it’s going to be very meaningful because Asia is ascendant,” Eisenberg said. “I think you’re going to see alignment between the ascendant nations going forward. Israel and the Emirates are a big part of that.”