👋 Hello from the Middle East!

In the Daily Circuit today, we’re reporting on record profit for Bahrain’s Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund, a $1 billion projection for Saudi budget carrier Flynas’ IPO, G42’s deal with Cisco to collaborate on AI development, and the new Grand Egyptian Museum welcoming visitors. But first, the U.S. President’s Gulf visit next week is attracting corporate leaders to tag along.

From Beverly Hills to Riyadh, several of the headliners at this week’s Milken Global Investment conference are heading to the Middle East so they can be on hand for U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 13 touchdown in Saudi Arabia.

While Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih heads home as the California confab winds up today, top American corporate executives, including Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson and Google’s Ruth Porat, will also fly to the Gulf next week.

The three business leaders are scheduled to speak at a Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh that is being put together to coincide with Trump’s Gulf tour, which will also take him to Qatar and the UAE.

Other U.S. executives slated to appear at Riyadh’s vast King Abdulaziz International Conference Center are BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Palantir’s Alex Karp, Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon.

The conference site abutting Riyadh’s storied Ritz-Carlton Hotel also hosts the annual Future Investment Initiative gathering. Both events are sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with Aramco, Maaden, and other state-owned companies.

Trump, who will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he arrives in the kingdom, said he anticipates completing major arms deals and will seek to obtain a Saudi commitment to invest as much as $1 trillion in the U.S. The Crown Prince offered $600 billion.

Greeting participants at next week’s conference will be top Saudi Cabinet members, including Al-Falih, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Minister of Energy; Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Minister of Finance; Bandar Ibrahim Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources; and Aramco CEO Amin Nasser.

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CIRCUIT INTERVIEW

Abu Dhabi’s Story hotels chief plots strategy from the Seychelles to Mecca

From private island escapes in the Seychelles to luxury hotel towers under construction in Mecca, Story Hospitality is trying to build on its boutique niche in the UAE and expand to new markets, The Circuit’s Omnia Al Desoukie reports.

Backed by Abu Dhabi Capital Group, one of the UAE’s largest family investment offices with $20 billion in assets under management, the company is looking to Saudi Arabia, Oman and other Gulf neighbors to build its brand regionally as it eyes more far-flung resort destinations in Africa.

CEO Victor Abou-Ghanem, who was born in Lebanon and learned the industry working at hotel icons such as the Dorchester Collection and Kempinski Hotels, said he isn’t chasing cookie-cutter growth as the company plots a strategy beyond its Emirates base.

Click here to read the full interview.

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UAE developer Arada has acquired the New South Wales state arm of Australian construction firm Roberts Co, investing $20 million to support its expansion in Australia and securing 700 jobs across its supply chain.

The Sydney-based builder will become the “main delivery pipeline” for 5,000 homes Arada plans to build in the next 24 months, chief executive Ahmed Alkhoshaibi told The Australian Financial Review.

The Gulf cash injection comes at a critical time for Roberts Co, which was forced to put its Victorian state arm into administration in March, leaving projects worth billions in limbo.

Arada, a Sharjah-based firm founded by the son of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Sharjah’s Deputy Ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, has been growing at lightning speed.

It first announced it would make its international debut in Australia last August. Alkhoshaibi told The National in February that the company was open to the possibility of an IPO after it sold out a $1.5 billion Sharjah project in three hours.

Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, reported a record profit of $963 million in 2024, reversing a significant loss from the previous year.

The turnaround was driven by McLaren Group’s restructuring and a partnership with Abu Dhabi-backed CYVN Holding, the sovereign said.

“The past year marked a major period of change for Mumtalakat, as we repositioned for long-term growth,” said Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Chairman of the sovereign fund, Arabian Gulf Business Insights reported.

Simultaneously, revenue rose to about $5.8 billion, while profits from Aluminium Bahrain surged and earnings from the National Bank of Bahrain also edged up, though telecom profits dipped slightly.

The fund, which manages $18 billion in assets, has recently shifted focus to local investments and signed regional deals in green energy and healthcare.

Despite the turnaround, S&P revised its outlook on Mumtalakat to negative, mirroring concerns over Bahrain’s fiscal outlook.

From private island escapes in the Seychelles to luxury hotel towers under construction in Mecca, Story Hospitality is trying to build on its boutique niche in the UAE and expand to new markets.

Backed by Abu Dhabi Capital Group, one of the UAE’s largest family investment offices with $20 billion in assets under management, the company is looking to Saudi Arabia, Oman and other Gulf neighbors to build its brand regionally as it eyes more far-flung resort destinations in Africa.

CEO Victor Abou-Ghanem, who was born in Lebanon and learned the industry working at hotel icons such as the Dorchester Collection and Kempinski Hotels, said he isn’t chasing cookie-cutter growth as the company plots a strategy beyond its emirates base.

“We don’t copy-paste concepts,” the dapper 44-year-old executive said in an interview while attending last week’s Arabian Travel Market conference. “Every Story hotel is unique, with its own concept and narrative.”

Formerly known as H’Mark Hosts with its signature H Hotel in Dubai at the foot of Sheikh Zayed Road, the company rebranded in 2021 to roll out the 5-star line of Story hotels, while introducing a 4-star franchise under the name Cue Hotels. Story Hospitality expects to double its hotel count this year to 12, according to its website, with new locations in the Seychelles and near the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Is now a good time for Story Hospitality to open new hotels?

Absolutely! And this is happening globally, not just in one region. First, post-pandemic, people really wanted to travel again, and we saw a sharp increase in leisure travel. Any destination able to welcome leisure customers saw a boom.

Second, inflation has increased since the pandemic. Investing in real estate, especially hotels, is considered inflation-proof because you can pass some of those costs onto customers. Hotel rates are rising; they rarely go down, so as prices increase globally, we’re also able to increase our rates and maintain returns. Today, hotel investment remains attractive because it offers stable or even increasing returns despite inflation.

How does your connection with Abu Dhabi Capital Group help the hotel chain grow?

As their hospitality arm, we handle all hospitality-related and commercial building operations, whether through acquisition or development from scratch. We’ve done mixed-use projects with malls, offices, residences, and hotels. Sometimes we operate hotels only, or offices only — depending on the location and project. What’s unique is that each division, including Story Hospitality, defines its own growth and expansion plan. It’s not dictated by the holding group.
ADCG requires a certain return and growth – we decide how to achieve that. It’s like starting with a blank page – we own the strategy and execution.

Given your strong momentum, how is Story Hospitality positioning itself for expansion within the GCC?

We’re a GCC-rooted company with headquarters in Abu Dhabi, focused on having a strong presence in the region. UAE and Saudi Arabia are must-haves for us. We’re also active in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and soon Bahrain. The UAE is our base, and Saudi Arabia is where the real boom is happening, especially between now and 2030. Our first hotel in Mecca should open before the end of this year. We’re also exploring opportunities in Riyadh and the Red Sea. Importantly, we don’t just take any hotel and rebrand it. We find the right product that fits Story and only then do we put our name on it.

When evaluating new opportunities, what key criteria determine whether a hotel project aligns with the Story brand?

There are many criteria. First, we ensure we work with the right partners and owners.
Management agreements are long-term, 20 years or more, so aligning values and goals is essential. Second, we only choose destinations where we can operate successfully and outperform competitors. We assess KPIs such as location, demand, hotel supply, and whether it’s a leisure, religious, or business destination. We also consider the nature of the project — is it luxury, five-star, or lifestyle? From there, we define size, brand, and offering in collaboration with the owner.

Unlike others, we don’t copy-paste concepts. Every Story hotel is unique, with its own concept and narrative. We tailor each project to fit the owner’s vision, not the other way around.

Are you pursuing strategic partnerships with Gulf sovereign wealth funds or public investment entities?

We’re working on a few projects, though they’re still confidential. We’re actively engaged with at least one party, and if all goes well, you might hear an announcement within a month. The sovereigns are definitely of interest.

Story operates across both 5-star and 4-star segments. How do you ensure consistent quality and brand integrity?

It’s a tough question — what is luxury, really? Some people associate it with big rooms and marble finishes, and that’s part of it. For example, in Dubai, our hotel offers the largest standard rooms — 40-plus square meters, when the legal minimum is 25. That’s a choice we made.
We always ensure our hotels meet or exceed the country’s legal and classification requirements. But we don’t stop at the minimum, we do more.

Luxury today also means strong product quality and rich amenities: multiple restaurants, spas, pools, and wellness facilities like yoga or Pilates. Most importantly, luxury is about service, which is high-end, consistent, and people-driven. Our guest reviews on platforms like Booking.com and TripAdvisor speak to that. With the right location, product, and service, you can command high prices and retain customers. Without all three, you won’t.

As the GCC’s hotel market becomes more competitive, how do you attract, develop, and retain top-tier hospitality professionals?

It starts with the basics: treat people well. Just like with customers, we keep employees by taking care of them. That means being fair, giving them opportunities to grow, and offering training. At Story, we support career progression and international mobility. If someone wants to grow and travel, they can. Other companies may not provide that, you stay in your role or leave. For us, it’s not just about competitive salaries. It’s about learning.

We require at least two training sessions per year, especially for employees who use software. We offer both soft skills and technical skills training. We also promote from within and foster diversity, no discrimination based on nationality, religion, or gender. In Dubai, we’ve partnered with the government to train and employ autistic individuals. If someone is capable and willing, we’ll support them.

Some of America’s top corporate executives, including BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and Palantir’s Alex Karp, will be following U.S. President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia next week.

The three business leaders are scheduled to speak at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh that is being put together to coincide with Trump’s arrival in the kingdom on May 13, when he kicks off a tour of the Gulf that will also take him to Qatar and the UAE.

Other U.S. executives slated to appear are Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson, Alphabet’s Ruth Porat, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon.

Trump, who will meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he arrives in Riyadh, said he anticipates completing major arms deals in the kingdom and will seek to obtain a Saudi commitment to invest as much as $1 trillion in the U.S. The Crown Prince offered $600 billion.

The business event will take place at the vast King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in the capital city’s diplomatic quarter, where the annual Future Investment Initiative gathering is held, alongside the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The event is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, along with Aramco, Maaden and other state-owned companies.

Greeting participants in the conference will be top Saudi Cabinet members, including Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Minister of Energy; Khalid Al-Falih, the Minister of Investment; Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Minister of Finance; Bandar Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources; and Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco.

The global race to develop powerful AI models is increasingly dominated by the U.S. and China, leaving ambitious countries like the UAE struggling to keep up.

The UAE’s flagship model, Falcon, which once promised to dominate, has fallen behind in rankings and user adoption, with the system now lagging far behind global leaders by performance, Bloomberg reports.

G42, a major backer of another GenAI system called Jais, has shifted focus to customizing models from companies like OpenAI instead of developing its own.

This reflects a broader trend across the Middle East and Europe, where several high-profile AI ventures, including Germany’s Aleph Alpha and Britain’s Stability AI, have scaled back or collapsed.

Across the Middle East and beyond, companies are reassessing whether it’s worth the massive cost of developing cutting-edge AI models from scratch.

G42’s Jais still has the potential to become a competitive “frontier model,” according to Kiril Evtimov, who leads the company’s cloud unit, Core42.

But even he admits the economics may not add up, “Is that the right business strategy for us to capture the market? Probably the answer is no.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed new 100% tariffs on films made “in foreign lands” could disrupt productions already underway in the MENA region, as well as hurting plans to attract more American projects, according to Arab producers and filmmakers.

“As a producer who has spent years bridging Hollywood and Abu Dhabi, I’ve seen first-hand how international collaboration strengthens the industry creatively and economically,” Qais Qandil, the Jordanian founder of The Film Makers, an Emirati production company, told The National.

“It may complicate my immediate plans to bring more U.S. projects to the region.” Countries including the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia offer generous tax incentives to attract international productions.

Abu Dhabi, in particular, has been a major location for blockbusters including the “Mission: Impossible” series and “Dune: Part 2.”

Qandil said U.S. productions also chose Middle East locations for their world-class infrastructure and cinematic value, not just the incentives.

“It could discourage the very partnerships that have made modern filmmaking thrive,” he said.

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund invested billions in artificial intelligence because it recognized early that the difficulties of building power-hungry AI networks could turn into big profits down the line, Deputy Group CEO Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhair said.

“We wanted to get involved, really at the AI infrastructure level,” Al Muhair said in a panel discussion on Monday at the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif.

“We wanted to help be an enabler, because we identified… that there were going to be energy constraints, there were going to be transmission constraints, data center capacity constraints, in order to enable what we think is going to be revolutionary from a global perspective,” he said.

Mubadala joined with the Abu Dhabi-based G42 artificial intelligence firm in March to launch MGX, an investment fund that expects to raise $100 billion to support AI technology development. Over the past year, the sovereign fund has co-invested in AI ventures with Microsoft, OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI and Anthropic.

Al Muhair spoke on a panel about Global Capital Markets with Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Carlyle’s Harvey Schwartz, Prudential’s Andrew Sullivan and Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson. Other Mubadala executives at the Milken conference this week include Khaled Al Marri, CEO of Real Assets; and Mohamed Albadr, Head of Asia within the Direct Investments platform.

“We wouldn’t have put as much capital as we have into MGX and into AI if we didn’t think that this was going to be a long-term trend that was going to help kind of fuel growth, globally speaking,” Al Muhair said.