Five PE Firms Open Abu Dhabi Offices in Six Weeks Despite War

Five private markets firms have opened offices in Abu Dhabi's international financial centre since late September, chasing Gulf sovereign wealth even as conflict disrupts the region. The cluster of launches landed while the war between Iran, the US and Israel has scrambled shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and put Iranian drone strikes on data centres in the UAE and Bahrain.

Advent International is the latest to plant a flag. It announced its first Middle East office in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) on Oct. 21, headed by Mehdi Iraqi, the firm's managing director of limited partner services.

Why is ADGM suddenly the default base?

ADGM has become the preferred hub for sponsors expanding into the Middle East, including major European firms. Sweden's EQT opened its Abu Dhabi office in late September; France's Eurazeo followed in early October. Both pointed to the region's large concentration of sovereign wealth capital and its long-term trajectory.

The list keeps growing. Bain Capital and Blue Owl opened Abu Dhabi bases this year. Pantheon launched its own ADGM hub in September, and New Mountain Capital followed on Oct. 6. Last month, KKR held talks with the Kuwait Investment Authority about investment opportunities and an expanded regional collaboration.

The money at stake is real. Foreign investors participated in nearly half of the Middle East's overall PE deal value last year — a record for foreign involvement. Total ME deal value came to $16.9 billion in 2024, with foreign investors accounting for 45.5% of it. In 2025, $7.7 billion across 63 deals has come with foreign participation, according to PitchBook data.

What does this change for practitioners?

Peter Unwin, head of private wealth & family office, Middle East at investor services group IQ-EQ, said the shift is structural, not cosmetic. Firms used to run Gulf relationships remotely.

"One of the biggest changes over the past few years has been in how international investment firms approach the region. Previously, many managed their relationships with Gulf investors from London or elsewhere in Europe, travelling to the region for meetings," Unwin said.

"Now, more firms are establishing offices in Dubai, with investment teams and senior decision makers based here," he said. Being on the ground, he added, goes beyond fundraising: the region is relationship-driven, and proximity keeps firms close to the people actually making allocation decisions.

The flow is already two-way. The UK was the largest source of announced foreign investment projects into Dubai across all sectors in the first half of 2025, at 16.2% of the total, according to the Dubai FDI Monitor, published by the emirate's Department of Economy and Tourism. The US tied with India for second at 14.9%, with France fourth and Italy fifth.

What do the early movers say it's worth?

Ardian, which opened its first Abu Dhabi office in 2023, has more than doubled its LP base since, said Yacine Zarrouk, co-head of Ardian Limited and senior managing director.

"It has changed how we do deals too; our regional relationships increasingly extend into joint platforms and co-investments, such as the real estate secondaries platform we launched with ADIA earlier this year," Zarrouk said.

"The opportunity is greater than when we arrived, and so is the competition. As fundraising has also become tougher in other markets, more international firms have turned their attention to the region," he said.

PGIM built its Abu Dhabi presence in 2024 and says senior-stakeholder conversations have become more substantive from the outset. Mohammed Abdulmalek, head of Middle East at PGIM, said capital from the region has kept flowing despite recent volatility.

"We've seen continued capital flows into our platform from the region despite recent volatility, spanning public fixed income across the risk spectrum from investment grade to emerging market debt, real estate with a focus on core and real estate debt strategies, and secondaries. We see this as a reflection of the relationships we've built here rather than simply market timing," Abdulmalek said.

PGIM has also partnered with Kamco Invest in Kuwait to develop joint investment solutions, set to launch in Abu Dhabi in 2024, and established the RealAssetX Innovation Centre with ADGM Academy and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.

For firms still managing the Gulf from London, the message from ADGM's newest tenants is blunt: the deals and the LPs increasingly go to whoever shows up in person. With fundraising harder elsewhere, expect more names on that Abu Dhabi tenant list, not fewer.