Mubadala Capital said it hired Ophir Shmuel, a London-based money manager at Eaton Partners, as its new Head of Business Development.

Shmuel will “lead efforts to expand and deepen our relationships with investors globally,” Mubadala Capital, an investment arm of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, said on LinkedIn.

At Eaton, a U.S. private equity firm based in Stamford, Conn., Shmuel was Managing Director and Head of the Europe, Middle East and Africa division in London.

Shmuel is a graduate of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. and previously worked as a research analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Mubadala Capital was founded in 2011 as the sovereign wealth fund’s alternative investment arm and manages about $30 billion in assets. In 2017, Mubadala became the first sovereign wealth fund to manage third-party capital on behalf of global institutional investors.

In April, TWG Global, the U.S. investment firm led by financiers Mark Walter and Thomas Tull, took a 5% stake in Mubadala Capital. In December, Mubadala Capital acquired a 42% stake in Los Angeles-based credit asset manager Silver Rock Financial.

Barclays is putting together two of its senior bankers as joint chief executives to bolster its growing business in the Middle East.

The London-based lender said it promoted Khaled El Dabag and Walid Mezher to preside over banking activities from its regional headquarters in Dubai. They will report to Stephen Dainton, Head of Investment Bank Management.

“As the Middle East continues to play a bigger role in shaping global capital markets and attracting more wealth, the region is also becoming increasingly important to Barclays’ overall success,” Dainton said in a statement.

Mezher has been head of markets for the MENA region since 2017. El Dabag, who joined the Barclays from Goldman Sachs more than a decade ago, has been leading investment banking locally and was acting as CEO of the broader region, Bloomberg reports.

Meanwhile, Laura Hinton, a managing partner at PwC in the U.K. is being considered to head the accounting firm’s Middle East operations, the FT reports.

The Cleveland Clinic, a pioneering U.S. medical center, has tapped Peng Xiao, Chief Executive of UAE tech powerhouse G42, to chair its Abu Dhabi branch.

The hospital announced on Wednesday that Peng was picked to lead the board as part of its effort to improve patient care through employing artificial intelligence in medical diagnostics and innovative treatments.

G42, which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group and shareholders including Mubadala Investment Co. and Microsoft, has been at the forefront of the UAE’s efforts to become a leader in AI infrastructure and other advanced technologies. Peng has been CEO since its founding in 2018.

The Cleveland Clinic’s CEO and President, Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, hailed the appointment, saying in a statement that Peng will help the hospital “continue to grow as a beacon of excellence and innovation in the region.”

Peng expressed his commitment to expanding Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi’s services by marshaling the country’s technological resources.

“By combining the hospital’s renowned clinical expertise with advanced artificial intelligence, we will deliver earlier diagnoses, more precise therapies, and better outcomes for every patient,” Peng said.

French defense and technology giant Thales is advancing plans to deepen its footprint in Saudi Arabia through a radar production facility and expanded cooperation with Saudi Arabian Military Industries.

The goal, Pascale Sourisse, senior executive vice-president of international development at Thales, told The National, is to bolster the kingdom’s air defense capabilities and contribute to its broader strategy of localizing military production and becoming a global defense supply chain player.

This partnership aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 ambitions, aiming to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, create skilled jobs for Saudis, and boost domestic technical expertise.

With military spending reaching over $80 billion in 2024, Saudi Arabia remains a key market for Thales’ long-term growth and innovation in defense technologies, Sourisse said.

While focusing on the kingdom, Thales is also pursuing plans to establish an AI research center in Abu Dhabi, marking its first such hub in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is looking to further broaden its interests in professional sports after becoming a global power in competitions ranging from golf and soccer to mixed martial arts.

SURJ Sports, an investment arm of the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, is in talks to invest in the organizers of the T100 Triathlon World Tour as part of plans to grow the series, Bloomberg reports.

The Saudi fund is negotiating with the London-based Professional Triathletes Organisation and it’s unclear how much SURJ will invest, the news agency said.

The PTO aims to turn triathlons into a professional sport. Last year, it launched the T100 Triathlon World Tour, which covers a total distance of 100 kilometers (62 miles), including an 80-kilometer bike ride, an 18-kilometer run and a 2-kilometer swim.

Cordillera Investment Partners, a San Francisco-based investment fund, invested $10 million into the PTO in March, Bloomberg reports. Other investors in the PTO include Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Delivery firm Ninja is Saudi Arabia’s newest tech unicorn, reaching a valuation of $1.5 billion after it raised $250 million from local investors.

The funding round was led by Riyad Capital, the investment banking arm of PIF-backed Riyad Bank, the kingdom’s third biggest lender by assets, Bloomberg reports.

Ninja, which was founded in 2022, offers rapid delivery of food and groceries in Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. It is targeting an IPO by 2027, according to Bloomberg.

Startups in Saudi raised nearly $400 million in the first quarter of this year, highlighting the kingdom’s growing venture capital scene.

Ninja joins several other Saudi start-ups with so-called “unicorn” valuations over $1 billion, including fintech companies Tamara and Tabby.

Meanwhile, Qatar has moved to regulate commercial licenses for its cloud kitchens, the hidden production facilities used by many restaurant brands for booming home delivery services.

The Gulf’s largest state-owned oil companies are adapting to lower crude prices in the foreseeable future by cutting back on multibillion-dollar acquisitions and selling assets.

Both Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest petroleum exporter, and Abu Dhabi-based ADNOC have slowed down their M&A activities as they assess what the 16% drop in oil prices this year will mean for their bottom lines, the Financial Times reports.

Over the past three years, Aramco and ADNOC have been the oil industry’s most active dealmakers, announcing more than $60 billion of acquisitions as the two giants expanded into gas, chemicals and lubricants.

With oil prices falling to $67 a barrel this week and analysts predicting continued oversupply in the market, both companies are looking at ways to cut spending and curb their appetites for big acquisitions, the newspaper said.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, meanwhile, reported that net profit fell by more than half last year to about $7 billion, reflecting the impact of lower crude prices for the sovereign wealth fund, which owns a 16% stake in Aramco.

The PIF’s income from investment activities, however, gained 38% from the previous year, pushing the fund’s total assets under management above $1 trillion, second among Gulf sovereign wealth funds to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Etihad Rail could take a lead role in upgrading dilapidated railways in Africa, as the developer and operator of the UAE’s nascent national rail network eyes opportunities for overseas expansion.

The company signed a host of initial cooperation agreements in May with governments in Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and Chad, Arabian Gulf Business Insight reports.

Chiefly, the UAE is being courted to provide a potential lifeline to Kenya’s Mombasa-Malaba standard gauge railway connection to Uganda, an ambitious project which stalled about 400 kilometers short of the border after China pulled back on lending.

The railway will eventually continue on to South Sudan.

Etihad Rail, established in 2009, successfully launched freight operations in the UAE in 2023, with passenger rail services expected to start next year.