Our Services

The consumer sector in our region continues to evolve as retailers embrace digital transformation. Young populations with growing disposable incomes as well as government initiatives to promote tourism and business are key drivers of consumer spend. We focus on a broad range of companies involved in apparel, food and beverages, automobiles, supermarkets, packaged goods and beauty and wellness.

Education has become a central focus of regional governments seeking to diversify away from oil and build world-class education systems. Growing demand for international curriculums has spurred investment and attracted international operators to enter the region. We focus on K-12 schools, universities and a broad range of segments within vocational education. Education technology platforms will become a major catalyst for growth as they enable incumbents to better serve their students.

While our region is the largest exporter of oil and gas in the world, there is limited M&A activity in the upstream oil and gas sector as it is mostly government controlled. Our focus in this segment is on oil field services across multiple sub-segments including offshore oil and gas, drilling and services, where we benefit from the support of our founder, Ziad Awad, who was previously the head of Energy and Power Investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Financial services account for a large percentage of the market capitalization of listed equities. A recent wave of consolidation to improve profitability and strengthen banks’ balance sheets has made the sector more robust. We cover banks, as well as non-bank financial institutions, and insurance companies. Fintech is a major driver for innovation and improved customer service and experience in this sector.

Healthcare is undergoing transformation at an unprecedented pace and scale. A high-prevalence of non-communicable diseases, gradual roll-out of mandatory health insurance and government initiatives to establish the region as a medical tourism hub have attracted considerable investment in hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities. We closely follow telehealth, which is rapidly disrupting this sector.

The industrials sector in the region is expanding and attracting investment as countries look to maintain a diversified economic base. We focus on a range of subsectors across the industrials spectrum including building materials, paper products, wood products, metals, paints and coatings, water and waste-water treatment, chemicals and refining services.

The real estate and construction sector is one of the largest sectors in the Middle East. We have broad expertise across multiple subsectors including civil, MEP, and infrastructure construction, building materials, facilities management, maintenance and operations and real estate development and investment. We see long term opportunities in facilities management where the vast stock of quality regional real estate needs to be maintained and upgraded over time, leading to long term contracts with recurring income.

Technology, Media and Communications is by far our most active sector. Via our partnership with Drake Star Partners, we cover consumer & retail tech, communications, martech & adtech, enterprise software, information technology & business services, industrial tech, mobility & smart cities, digital media, and fintech. We believe that investment activity in technology will continue to grow faster than the world economy and that most traditional economic sectors will continue to be disrupted and converge towards being more technologically focused and enabled.

Our region has undergone massive investment in roads, ports, airports, and public transport as governments set long-term economic visions to enhance trade and tourism. We focus on a wide range of subsectors including last-mile delivery, freight transport and courier services. The globally central and strategic position of our region makes it a hub for air and sea transportation, and in turn it is home to some of the world’s largest transportation companies, including Emirates Airlines and DP World.