Related Articles

• 
  AHS Properties acquires Shangri-La hotel for $300m

  17 June 2026

  Dubai-based real estate developer AHS Properties has announced the acquisition of the Shangri-La hotel for AED1.1bn ($300m), marking one of the largest single-asset real estate transactions in recent years.

  AHS Properties acquired the hotel from local firm Mismak Asset Management.

  The Shangri-La Hotel is a 43-storey, 200-metre tower located on Sheikh Zayed Road. Completed in 2003, it was among the first five-star hotels to open along the corridor.

  The acquisition expands AHS Properties’ portfolio, which includes AHS Tower, a Grade A commercial development on Sheikh Zayed Road, and AHS City, the company’s master-planned mixed-use community on the same corridor.

  In a statement, AHS Properties said that AHS Tower, AHS City and the Shangri-La hotel form a strategic “vertical corridor” platform, representing a significant portion of the company’s AED50bn development pipeline through the end of 2026.

  “The transaction reflects AHS Properties’ strategy of deploying capital into high-quality, supply-constrained assets,” the statement added.

  According to the Dubai Land Department, Dubai’s real estate sector recorded AED252bn in transactions in Q1 2026.

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  UAE moves to clear the path for recovery

  17 June 2026

  Commentary
  Colin Foreman
  Editor

  More than three months after the conflict began to disrupt business across the Gulf, the UAE is moving to resolve the technical challenges that the economy faces as it shifts towards recovery.

  The insurance gap has been a key obstacle to the recovery of aviation and tourism. Several countries continue to maintain advisories against travel to the Gulf, making it difficult or impossible for visitors to obtain conventional cover for trips to or through the region. The concern is twofold: one, becoming stranded should hostilities resume, and two, not being able to secure medical insurance. Both Emirates and Etihad have now moved to address that directly, offering insurance to passengers flying to or through their respective home hubs. The Etihad scheme, backed by DCT Abu Dhabi and underwritten by Daman, will run from July to December and covers eligible visitors for up to 15 days.

  The second area of concern is real estate. Anecdotally, buyers in sectors economically exposed to the conflict have found it increasingly difficult to obtain mortgage financing, a problem that has become especially acute at the point of handover. The recently signed partnership between Dubai Holding Real Estate and Commercial Bank of Dubai is designed to ease that pressure. The programme opens financing from the 30% construction stage once buyers have met a 50% payment threshold, giving purchasers earlier visibility of their borrowing capacity and reducing uncertainty during the off-plan purchase process.

  Taken together, the two initiatives show that the UAE is proactively addressing the technical hurdles as and when they arise. As the recovery gathers momentum, more challenges will surface. The capacity and willingness to address them as they emerge will be crucial to a meaningful recovery.

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  Colin Foreman
• 
  Libya signs three oil deals after licensing round

  17 June 2026

  Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has signed three production-sharing agreements with several international energy companies following the country’s first licensing round in nearly two decades.

  The three agreements have been signed with the following consortiums:

  • Block O1 – offshore – Eni (Italy; 60%) and QatarEnergy (40%)
  • Block O7 – offshore – Repsol (Spain; 40%), Turkiye Petrolleri A O (TPAO; Turkiye; 40%) and MOL Group (Hungary; 20%)
  • Block C3 – onshore – Repsol and TPAO

  The contracts are three of the five announced as awarded in February this year as part of the 2025 licensing round.

  The three contracts were signed on 15 June.

  It is not known why the remaining two awarded contracts have not been signed.

  The remaining two contracts are:

  • Block M1 – onshore – Aiteo (Nigeria)
  • Block S4 – onshore – Chevron (US)

  Libya is seeking to attract investment and raise oil production capacity to 2 million barrels a day (b/d) from around 1.4 million b/d currently.

  The chairman of NOC, Massoud Suleman, said that the agreements reflected growing confidence in Libya’s oil and gas sector and would support exploration, development and production growth.

  The 2025 licensing round was Libya’s first licensing round since 2007.

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  Wil Crisp
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  Local consortium wins Egypt grid contracts

  17 June 2026

  

   

  Egypt’s Korra Energi and High Dam for Electrical & Industrial Projects (Hidelco) have won contracts to build two sections of a major power transmission project connecting wind farms in the Gulf of Suez to the national grid.

  The contracts were awarded by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC). In a statement, Korra said the contracts cover the first and third lots of a wider scheme involving the construction of 500-kilovolt (kV) extra-high-voltage overhead transmission lines.

  The consortium will execute a 45-kilometre transmission line under Lot 1, valued at £E1.5bn ($29m).

  Lot 3 covers a 52km transmission line and is valued at £E1.65bn.

  The two contracts have a combined value of more than £E3bn ($58m). Both are scheduled for completion within one year of contractual close, Korra said.

  The transmission lines will connect new wind power projects in the Gulf of Suez to Egypt’s electricity network. The project is expected to enable the integration of more than 2GW of renewable energy capacity.

  The wider transmission scheme has an estimated investment value of £E12bn-14bn and has been divided into eight packages. EETC is implementing the project as part of efforts to strengthen grid infrastructure and increase its capacity to absorb renewable energy generation.

  The award follows Korra Energi’s listing on the Egyptian Stock Exchange earlier this month. The company offered an 11% stake through a public and private placement at £E2.97 ($0.06) a share.

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  Mark Dowdall
• 
  Retirement creates multibillion-dollar opportunity for region

  16 June 2026

  The GCC has long relied on government pension schemes and employer gratuity payments to provide for retirement. As workforces expand, demographics shift and expatriate communities put down longer-term roots, those arrangements are coming under growing strain. A new report from BlackRock argues that addressing those pressures represents one of the region’s more consequential economic policy opportunities – not only for individuals, but also for the depth and sophistication of its financial markets.

  The asset manager’s recently published Read on Retirement: GCC 2026 study, based on a survey of 1,000 working individuals across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, depicts a workforce that is motivated but structurally underserved.

  In the UAE, the survey finds that 78% of workers feel positive about their current financial position. Yet 59% say financial worries prevent them from planning for the future, and 58% worry about outliving their savings. Retirement preparedness stands at 67% among UAE nationals, underpinned by public pension provision, but falls to 46% among expatriates.

  Three-quarters of respondents say they have begun preparing for retirement. Yet only 24% are contributing to a pension or long-term savings plan. The remainder are saving through cash, gold and property – assets that may preserve value but are not designed to generate sustainable retirement income. The survey indicates that 49% of respondents hold savings in cash, 40% in gold and 18% in property, suggesting a substantial share of potential long-term capital is held in short-term or non-productive forms.

  “What we see in the data is a clear retirement knowledge gap, not an intention gap. People are doing the right things in principle, but they don’t yet have access to the types of investment frameworks that can deliver sustainable retirement outcomes,” says Kashif Riaz, head of Middle East financial markets advisory at BlackRock.

  Good timing

  Several factors have converged to make retirement reform a timely priority. The UAE’s population is young compared with other developed markets, which provides a wide window for building long-duration savings pools.

  “It is a sweet spot right now – a very young population – and like all other geographies in the world, populations age over time,” Riaz says. “It is best to solve the problem structurally when the population is young and you have more workers than retirees.”

  The character of the expatriate workforce is also changing. A growing proportion of overseas workers is making long-term residency decisions, shifting their financial planning accordingly.

  “The demand for retirement solutions has grown much broader as expatriates make this their home for the long term,” Riaz notes. “Rather than conducting their banking, investing and primary real estate activity in their home countries with the intent to return, that is all happening here.”

  Reform is already under way. The UAE has introduced an alternative end-of-service benefit framework allowing employers to shift from the traditional, unfunded gratuity model – where liabilities sit on employer balance sheets and assets remain uninvested – to funded, defined-contribution structures managed by licensed providers. The Dubai International Financial Centre’s (DIFC’s) Employee Workplace Savings scheme is the most developed operational example. The private sector is beginning to follow.

  “Historically, in this region, only the largest or most multinational employers offered employee savings funds, but that is spreading,” Riaz says. “More insurance companies and asset managers are looking to develop the infrastructure to offer retirement solutions. We expect that to accelerate.”

  Financial markets

  For stakeholders in the region’s financial centres and for institutional investors, the big opportunity is what a well-established retirement system would mean for regional markets. The DIFC, Abu Dhabi Global Market and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Financial District have each invested substantially in regulatory and institutional capacity to attract and manage long-term capital. A domestically generated pool of retirement savings would provide durable demand for the instruments and markets they host, spanning listed equities, sukuk, private credit and infrastructure funds.

  “The bigger and more vibrant a retirement system in a country, the bigger and more vibrant that country’s financial markets will also be,” Riaz says.

  There is a precedent. Australia’s superannuation system, built over three decades, is widely credited with transforming the depth and sophistication of Australian capital markets.

  For regional fixed income, a domestic retirement pool would create a durable base of long-duration buyers for government and corporate sukuk issuances that currently depend heavily on international appetite. For listed equities, it would deepen liquidity on bourses in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. And for infrastructure, it would provide precisely the patient capital the growing regional PPP pipeline requires.

  Favourable conditions

  The retirement survey findings suggest unusually favourable demand conditions for reform. More than 90% of both UAE nationals and expatriates find defined-contribution workplace savings schemes appealing, with similar proportions indicating they would participate if such schemes were available. The main barriers are structural and informational rather than attitudinal. Only 13% of expatriates and 21% of nationals report confidence in understanding the retirement savings options available to them, while 92% say they would save more if given better incentives.

  With 56% of respondents planning to increase their retirement savings, the case for directing that capital into more productive long-term channels is clear.

  “By expanding access to funded, professionally managed workplace savings schemes, the UAE can not only strengthen financial outcomes for individuals, but also mobilise significant pools of domestic capital, allowing people’s savings to grow alongside the economy they are helping to build,” Riaz says.

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  Colin Foreman