Nuveen is the second trillion-dollar investment firm to open shop this month at Abu Dhabi Global Market.

Prior to Nuveen, which manages $1.2 trillion in assets, Prudential Financial’s PGIM, with $1.3 trillion under management, also opened an office in the UAE capital in September.

Nuveen CEO William Huffman told The National, that his firm, which holds the assets of the U.S. teachers’ pension fund TIAA, offers the Middle East market “forward-looking opportunities including infrastructure, renewable energy and real estate technology.”

He said that “based on our conversations with investors, we believe… our reputation … aligns closely with the needs of clients in the region.”

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed wrapped up his U.S. tour with a stop at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He also met with former President George W. Bush in Texas and held a phone conversation with former President Bill Clinton before flying home to Abu Dhabi.

The centerpiece of the U.S. visit was a visit to the White House at the beginning of the week after which the Emirati leader and President Joe Biden issued a 3,900-word joint statement outlining the relationship of the two countries as “dynamic strategic partners.”

Focused in large part on the U.S.-Emirati economic alliance, the statement took note of the $1.5 billion artificial intelligence investment deal between Microsoft and the UAE’s Group 42, as emblematic of the growing technology cooperation between the two countries.

The two leaders “underscored that this transformative partnership has the potential to usher in a new era of international connectivity to facilitate global trade, expand reliable access to electricity, facilitate clean energy distribution, and strengthen telecommunication,” the joint statement said.

Biden and Sheikh Mohammed “emphasized the importance of joint initiatives to promote a circular economy, reduce waste, facilitate recycling, and advance sustainable practices, underscoring their commitment to innovation for resource efficiency and environmentally responsible growth,” the statement said.

The statement also called attention to promising regional initiatives including the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that will seek to connect India to Europe with ship-to-rail connections through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Greece.

New Zealand and the UAE have reached a free-trade agreement after four months of negotiations.

The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will eliminate duties on as much as 99% of New Zealand’s exports to the Gulf state, according to Trade Minister Todd McClay.

“This will create new opportunities for New Zealand businesses in the dynamic UAE market, contributing to our ambitious target of doubling exports by value in 10 years,” McClay said in a statement issued on Thursday.

Trade between the two countries reached $814 million for the year ending June 2024, he said.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed emerged from the White House this week with a new security pact that recognizes the Gulf state as a “major U.S. defense partner.” The Emirati leader also met with top tech and finance leaders while he was in Washington to talk about the UAE’s AI ambitions.

During a meeting in the Oval office on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden called the UAE “a nation of trailblazers… always looking to the future, always making big bets. And that’s something our countries have in common and our people have in common.”

On the following day, Sheikh Mohamed held serial meetings with MicrosoftCEO Satya Nadella, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Also present were senior members of the Royal Court and corporate executives, including Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Adviser and Chairman of AI development firm G42; Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Group CEO of Mubadala; Mohamed Alsuwaidi, Minister of Investment and CEO of ADQ; Edge Group Chairman Faisal Al Bannai and G42 CEO Peng Xiao.

Microsoft, meanwhile, announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its Global Engineering Development Center’s activities to the UAE, opening a new facility in Abu Dhabi that will be the company’s first engineering center in the Arab world.

The UAE’s determination to become a world center for AI development is attracting new interest from Asia’s big chipmakers.

Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics have discussed building large facilities to manufacture semiconductors in the UAE that could help propel the Gulf state to its goal of recognition as an artificial intelligence power, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Under initial terms being discussed, the projects would be funded by the UAE, with a central role for the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund and state-owned investment company MGX, which is focused on AI technology.

Amid the avalanche of interest in artificial intelligence, UAE-owned G42 has signed a variety of agreements with Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia over recent months.

When UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed visits the White House next week, advisers say his focus will be on economic and technology ties, though dipping into the geopolitical conflicts wracking the Middle East is inevitable.

The Emirati leader’s meeting with President Joe Biden will be his first in Washington since assuming the UAE Presidency in May 2022. The two also met at the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi and in Jeddah the previous year.

Dr. Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to Sheikh Mohammed, said during a briefing in Dubai that the trip, which starts Monday, will be concentrated on economic relations and how to “realign our relationship with America for the next 10 years,” The National reports.

“The main purpose of the visit, from an Emirati perspective, is investing in our future, and that’s through an economic lens and through a real realignment with what’s happening in AI and in technology,” Gargash said.

The sale of a minority stake in the Middle East Starbucks franchise owned by Kuwait’s AlShaya Group, which has drawn interest from Apollo Global Management and other international firms, appears to have been paused.

AlShaya, which owns some 2,000 Starbucks coffee outlets across the MENA region and eastern Europe, has watched the business’s market value dwindle in the face of widespread boycotts against the brand, Reuters reports.

Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC and other U.S. brands have been the target of protests in the region since the Gaza war started almost a year ago because of their perceived ties to Israel even though Starbucks has no outlets in the country.

AlShaya’s coffee business has been valued at between $4 billion and $5 billion, the news agency said.
 

Saudi Arabia’s push to anchor itself as a global financial capital lassoed another Wall Street firm as Lazard Inc. received a government license to establish a regional headquarters in Riyadh.

The authorization by the kingdom’s Ministry of Investment will allow Lazard to compete for government contracts that can be granted only to international companies that comply with the law requiring a substantial presence in Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg reports.

Goldman Sachs became the first major financial institution to get its regional headquarters license in May, while Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group Inc. received the authorization in June.

In the UAE, meanwhile, Stonepeak, a New York-based investment firm with $71 billion in assets, said it will open an office in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, joining a wave of financial firms drawn by the UAE capital’s expanding wealth.