Global investment companies line up for a piece of Dubai real estate pie
Bloomberg has reported that Canada's Brookfield – which already has the ICD Brookfield Place, the mega successful 53-storey, 1.1 million square feet commercial property in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) area as part of their joint venture with Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) – is now considering plans to develop a mixed-use community in the Dubai Hills area.
Goldman Sachs is looking at hospitality, with Goldman Sachs Asset Management investing an additional US$25 million in the UAE-based Sunset Hospitality Group (SHG), which aims to have 20 hotels in management or operation by 2026, including in cities like Barcelona, Milan, and Singapore. The US company had earlier invested US$35 million in SHG.
Hillhouse Investment, a prominent Asian private equity firm managing US$100 billion in assets, recently made news when a company backed by them, Ascentium, acquired the UAE-based Virtuzone. Now, its real estate unit Rava Partners have acquired the real estate of Hartland International School, valuing it at US$100 million.
Bloomberg also reported that Mapletree Investments, the property management company owned by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek, is also hoping to deploy about US$2 billion in the Gulf region after opening an office in Abu Dhabi last year.
In neighbouring Abu Dhabi, New York-based Apollo invested US$500 million in Subordinated Notes issued by Aldar Properties earlier this year. It is one of the region's largest-ever corporate hybrid private placements and brings Apollo's aggregate investment in Aldar to approximately US$1.9 billion across four transactions since 2022.
Jamshid Ehsani, Apollo Partner, said at the time: 'We are pleased to broaden our partnership and provide another scaled capital solution to Aldar by investing in a leading real estate franchise that we believe offers an attractive investment opportunity for our clients. Apollo's fourth investment in Aldar underscores our strong partnership with the company as well as our commitment to serving as a leading capital provider to the broader Abu Dhabi ecosystem.'
Andrew Love, head of capital markets and commercial agency at Knight Frank, told the wire agency: 'The past two years have been busier for us than the whole previous decade on the capital market side. Demand is growing from overseas buyers, who are coming in search of better returns and lower taxes.'
In its H2 2024 Dubai Office Market Review in March, Knight Frank had said average lease rates across key submarkets were up by 9.1 per cent. The company told Bloomberg that in the last 24 months, eight office buildings sales were recorded in Dubai, more than the previous 10 years combined. This was in addition to 15 hotel transactions over the past 30 months.
The report credited Dubai's strong bounceback from the COVID pandemic, when it became one of the first cities in the world to be fully opened for business. This was also supported by the government's 'Golden Visa' programme, and the ability to attract businesses like cryptocurrencies and hedge funds through its policies and frameworks.
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