Fast fashion disruptor Shein is planning to confidentially file for a London public listing as soon as this week, Sky News reported, the first step in a super-sized initial public offering in the U.K.

The Singapore-headquartered company, which counts Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala as a major shareholder, had been targeting a New York IPO in the second half of last year but Beijing-Washington tensions waylaid those plans. 

To placate U.S. lawmakers in a bid to go public there, Shein has gone so far as to move its HQ from China to Singapore and stop selling its products in the world’s second-largest economy. Executive Chair Donald Tang told the Financial Times last month those efforts were not enough.  

Now the retailer is serving up a potential blockbuster to the sluggish London exchange, although a confidential filing does not necessarily mean a share sale is imminent. The filing will allow Shein to list more quickly if the company decides to move ahead on a market debut.

The 15-year-old company, which also counts venture capital group Sequoia China and private equity group General Atlantic as major backers, was valued at $66 billion in a funding round a year ago. 

While Shein did not invent the technology to help it predict rising fashion trends, the platform to give near real-time data to suppliers — who are mostly in China — created its unique “on-demand” production model, according to Business Insider, which looked into its production practices.

The data sharing allows for a fast turnaround from small order runs to much larger orders when an item is selling well, and to quickly drop an item when it isn’t.

The tight control it keeps over its supply chain has revolutionized fast fashion in recent years, making Shein more in demand among consumers than competitors like Zara and H&M.

Price is another factor in its popularity. McKinsey found the average cost per item from Shein is $14, while Zara is $34.

Saudi Aramco’s long-anticipated secondary offering, which could raise as much as $13.1 billion and rank among the most lucrative share sales since the company’s own IPO five years ago, gets underway next week.

The government filed papers on Thursday to start the booking process for investor orders that will lead to the sale of a 0.64% chunk of the world’s largest oil producer on the Tadawul Stock Exchange in Riyadh. Aramco will start taking orders from institutional investors on Sunday, June 2.

State-owned Aramco will earn about $12 billion if it chooses to sell the shares at the top of its indicated pricing range and could add another $1.1 billion by exercising the so-called greenshoe option in the likely event that demand from investors is high.

“The offering provides us with an opportunity to broaden the shareholder base amongst both Saudi and international investors,” Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser told reporters on a call after the announcement, Reuters reported. “It also offers us an opportunity to increase liquidity and to increase our global index weighting.”

Selling the shares will provide the kingdom with cash to fuel Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $1.5 trillion Vision 2030 campaign to diversify the economy amid the global transition from fossil fuels. The government has recently extended the timeline for Neom and some of its mega-projects because of funding shortfalls as oil production cuts have reduced Aramco revenue.

At the top end of the price range, the Aramco deal would be the sixth-largest share sale since the company raised $30 billion in its 2019 initial public offering, Bloomberg reports.

Over 1,500 airline executives will descend on Dubai, the world’s busiest international travel hub, this weekend, for the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association.

The industry trade organization, which represents more than 300 airlines and over 80% of global air traffic, expects to grapple with airline chiefs’ biggest challenges over the three-day gathering.

At the top of the agenda are aircraft shortages, geopolitical tensions and carbon reduction strategies as declining airfares spell out a muted outlook for carriers.

The 80th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit, hosted by Emirates Airline, will run from Sunday, June 2 through Tuesday, June 4, and is for the first time taking place in the UAE.

Expected to attend are CEOs including Vanessa Hudson of Qantas; Tim Clark of Emirates Airline; Scott Kirby, of United Airlines and Shai Weiss of Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Aviation is a linchpin of Dubai’s economic ambitions: the industry contributed 27% to the emirate’s GDP and supported $37 billion in gross value added in 2023.

That is projected to increase to $53 billion in 2030, in line with Dubai’s growth forecast, according to Oxford Economics. 

Hundreds of investors gathered in Abu Dhabi on Thursday to discuss the future of family offices – a growing group that is steering an expanding pot of wealth to the region at a pivotal moment of economic transformation.

“Our mandate is to stay away from oil,” Abdulrahman Al Suwaidi, Managing Director of the UAE’s AS Investments, quipped on a panel at the Abu Dhabi Family Office Summit on Saadiyat Island.

Instead, the investors safeguarding the Gulf’s intergenerational wealth are looking to the diversification strategies in the region, such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 or the UAE’s “Future Economy” initiatives, to guide their investment decisions.

Al Suwaidi, who was previously the director of investments for the ruling family of Dubai’s family office, the Al Maktoums’ Dubai Holding, said his current fund is deploying capital in food security – they own a stake in the biggest halal poultry farm in the U.K. – as well as in green energy. 

In a part of the world overrun by fund managers looking to drum up capital, Ali Raza, CIO of Saudi Arabia Holding Co., said a key missing piece is how to effectively navigate the market.

“This goes for any region in the world but this is really the gap here,” Raza said.

Echoing Al Suwaidi, he implored would-be fundraisers to look to the economic transformation strategies in the countries where they are deal-hunting to identify opportunity.

Raza’s fund is deploying capital into electric vehicles and future mobility as well as semiconductors and data centers, he said. “Think very literally about Vision 2030,” he advised. 

Family offices in the Middle East have grown rapidly in recent years, with total assets under management forecasted to hit a half trillion dollars in 2025, according to an analysis by Forbes.

Some 45% of family offices in the region are managing a portfolio worth $251 million to $500 million, with another 32% presiding over $2.1 billion to $5 billion.

Although slightly ahead of their Asian counterparts, the concept of family offices remains relatively new in the region, with less than half operating for more than a decade, Forbes found.

By comparison, roughly two-thirds of U.S. and U.K. family offices have been around for more than 10 years. 

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is generating renewed energy among investors as it moves forward with a secondary offering.

The share sale is currently being planned to start on Sunday with the booking process to take orders and could raise more than $10 billion, making it the largest offering of its kind in years, Bloomberg reports.

No final decisions have been made on the offering period and terms of the deal, including its size, could still change, according to the news agency.

Aramco didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The offering is set to come days after Aramco’s stock dropped to the lowest level in over a year.

The deal’s opening will coincide with next week’s OPEC+ meeting to discuss oil output policy, where the group is expected to maintain supply curbs.

Saudi Arabia’s production is close to its lowest level in three years.

Saudi Arabia’s technology investment mega-fund Alat bought $2 billion worth of convertible bonds in Hong Kong PC giant Lenovo.

Under the deal, Alat has lured the world’s largest seller of personal computers to open a manufacturing plant to produce servers and PCs, as well as open a research center and its Middle East and Africa headquarters in Riyadh.

Launched earlier this year, Alat has previously signed partnerships with U.S.-based Carrier, Japan’s SoftBank Group and China’s Dahua Technology to build manufacturing plants in Saudi Arabia.

The SoftBank robotics plant is expected to open and assemble its first robot by year’s end.

In February, Saudi Arabia tapped ex-Dell Technologies executive Amit Midha to lead the new Public Investment Fund-owned industrial electronics company with $100 billion in backing that aims to become an AI investing and local manufacturing powerhouse.

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 eyeing 30 product categories including robotics, computing and digital entertainment, as well as advanced heavy machinery. 

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is among a handful of investors in formal talks with U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group over the sale of a stake in Indian data centers.

ADIA, the biggest sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East, along with Singapore’s GIC and global private equity majors like KKR are in discussions on the sale of Carlyle’s 24% stake in Nxtra Data, the data center business of Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel, Moneycontrol reports.

Carlyle had picked up the stake in the company in 2020 for $235 million.

News of the potential deal comes amid a wave of interest in data centers by Gulf sovereign wealth funds. ADIA has earmarked billions of dollars over the last several years to deploy into this critical infrastructure amid the artificial intelligence boom.

In 2022, ADIA joined hands with Singapore’s SC Capital to deploy as much as $2 billion into data center infrastructure in developed Asian economies.

Landing in Seoul on Tuesday for a two-day state visit to South Korea, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed swiftly set the strengthening of ties with Asia’s business elite at the top of his agenda.

He travels to Beijing on Wednesday amid ongoing negotiations within the Gulf Cooperation Council on a proposed free trade agreement with China.

Ahead of ceremonies and strategic talks with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the Emirati leader met with leaders of the country’s biggest conglomerates to discuss expanding trade in fields ranging from construction and shipbuilding to green energy, the Korea Herald reports.

Among those at the meeting were Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun and GS Group Chairman Huh Tae-soo.

Sheikh Mohamed brought his own corporate heavyweights on the swing through Asia, including Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology who is Group CEO of the national oil company ADNOC and President of COP28, which led the U.N. climate summit in Dubai.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of the UAE Executive Affairs Authority and Group CEO of the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, is also traveling in the presidential delegation.

Other key UAE cabinet members on the trip are Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Investment Mohamed Alsuwaidi and Minister of State for Foreign Trade Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi.

The four units of the UAE’s new $20 billion Barakah power plant in Abu Dhabi were built by Korea Electric Power Corp. and a consortium of Korean companies.