The UAE Advantage: Kevin O'Leary's Perspective

Entrepreneur

17-06-2025

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Kevin O'Leary, known as Mr. Wonderful, is a Canadian entrepreneur and international business investor. But now, O'Leary is also the brand ambas sador of UAE-born international real estate company ONE Development. Forming a strategic partnership with Ali Al Gebely, founder and Chairman of ONE Development, O'Leary will support the company's international expansion.
"When I met Ali [Ali Al Gebely] and learnt about his vision for Laguna Residence [an AED 2.4 billion real estate develop ment that is the UAE's first AI-integrated residential community], I thought it was such an extraordinary idea," O'Leary said on the sidelines of an exclusive event orga nized by ONE Development. "I'd never heard anybody combining an AI platform into a real estate develop ment. Usually AI is just a marketing talk. We've talked about smart homes for over 15 years, but they are still pretty dumb. There are five different apps that you have to use when you walk into your apartment or villa, but the idea he's got is to put it all into one integrated app - ONE AI App. In my view, that in itself is the number one selling feature of the whole project."
"What sets ONE Develop ment apart," O'Leary explains, "is its unapologetic focus on technology. This isn't just another real estate developer — it's the first of its kind to fully integrate a tech-first approach into every stage of development. From AI-driven design modeling to data-pow ered decision-making, they're not just building properties — they're building the future of how real estate operates."
Ali Al Gebely, founder and Chairman of ONE Development with Kevin O'Leary in Abu Dhabi. Image source: BNC Publishing/ONE Development
O'Leary will be supporting the remarkable growth trajectory that is ahead of ONE Development which includes expansion to international destinations, but also developing unique initiatives, such as DO Hotels, the world's first musical themed hotel that integrates AI, music, and wellness. DO Hotels launched its first development at Dubai Islands and second one at New Cairo and has plans to launch in Saudi Arabia and other international markets soon.
"I have a very simple rule that my mother taught me. She said no more than 5% in any one stock and no more than 20% of your portfolio diversification in any one sector. So 5% stock, 20% sector, except for one asset class - real estate," O'Leary points out. "That's my largest asset class. I love real estate. It's always about a third of my net worth. Why? It's a hard asset. It has superlative returns, and if you have the right vision in terms of where you want to develop, you can have outsized returns, because great real estate projects, such as ONE Development, attract capital because they get critical mass. That's what happens."
The partnership with ONE Development reconfirms O'Leary's belief in the MENA market's long-term potential. "I have a history in the Middle East because my mother's Lebanese, and I've been coming here for decades, but I didn't really think much about investing here until I started to realize how fast the economy was growing here," O'Leary says. "The key here that most investors don't understand, the one thing they don't get, is that so much growth is not in energy. There's been a lot of sectoral diversifications here in all kinds of different technologies, advances in biotech or in AI development or in real estate. You want to catch the growth of all these new sectors. A lot of people don't realize that, for example, if you look at spending in AI, you've got the US, China, and then UAE. That's what's going on here, and if you're not part of that, you're missing out on huge growth opportunities."
Image source: BNC Publishing/ONE Development
In 2023, O'Leary announced on his LinkedIn page that he had become a citizen of the UAE, a citizenship given by exception to people who are believed to be able to benefit the UAE economy.
"There's a lot of disruption going on in global trade, but that gives you a reason to start looking at the UAE," O'Leary says. "You can't understand it unless you physically come here and spend time here and find out who else is here and what's going on. Because no brochure, no online ad, no website is going to give you an idea of what's going on here- it's multicultural, a melting pot, a fantastic location. And the country is safe. I was like, why don't I incorporate here and start building businesses out of here? Why not think globally from here? Why not set up O'Leary Global and start doing new ideas from here and establish myself here? That's what I have done over the last three years."
He adds, "What was really interesting about the process is that every single accounting firm, consulting firm, and law firm that I use in New York, or Boston, or Toronto is already established here. They're not stupid. They know exactly what's going on. So I can use the same team out of Miami and talk to professionals here that are part of the same group, which we've done. "I'm like everybody else. You start in New York, then you go to London, then you go to Zurich, then you go to Geneva. That's the stepping stones of how you start to develop internationally. Then one day you get here and you walk off the plane and go, 'What is this?' Until you see it, you can't even envision it. I have watched the growth of both Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the last five years. It's almost geometric growth. It's like New York City on steroids, but safe. "For me, I have become an ambassador to this place by saying, look, if you're not in the UAE, you're missing out."
Apart from investing in real estate, O'Leary is bullish on new technologies, including cryptocurrencies.
"I have been extremely involved as an investor in many different crypto projects, and my thesis is that you want to own the infrastructure for crypto. What are those? The exchanges. I feel that I now have shares in every single crypto exchange in the world that's going to be relevant. After that, I have start buying the individual assets," O'Leary explains. "My thesis is that you need to own these assets because as soon as regulation comes in, institutional capital will come in. Right now, it's mostly hedge funds, private individuals, high net worth family offices, but the real money isn't there yet. Yet, the minute this becomes approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators, the real money will come in. I've said this many times before. I believe that crypto and digital payment systems will become the 12th sector of the economy, because it will service all the other sectors."
Image source: BNC Publishing/ONE Development
'TREP TALK: KEVIN O'LEARY'S ADVICE FOR ENTREPRENEURS
DON'T BE AFRAID TO START "Most entrepreneurs have a hard time making the first step to start. They should do it in their 20s, because that is when you have time and you don't have as many responsibilities, and you can make plenty of mistakes, which is great. I would rather invest in an entrepreneur that has felt the sting of failure a few times than one who thinks they can do it right the first time. They never can. It is so hard."
PREPARE YOUR PITCH "Learn to articulate the opportunity in 90 seconds or less, because no one is going to give any more time than that."
FOCUS ON EXECUTION "More important than a great idea is your ability to execute on it. Because great ideas are a dime a dozen. Executional skills are very hard to find. If you can find a young man or woman who looks and has the confidence to execute, that makes me interested in investing."
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS "You have got to know your numbers. How fast is the market growing? What are the gross margins? How many competitors are there? You got to know that stuff. That is the DNA of a great entrepreneur. Then obviously, you want to be in a market that is growing. It is like all boats rise in a rising tide, and so try and find regions of the world where businesses are being started in a high growth environment like here. There is a reason entrepreneurship is so prevalent here. The regulatory environment is very good. The tax rates are really competitive. The weather is great, and the economy is growing at an extraordinary rate because it is multi sectoral. I predict pretty good things for this place."