Abu Dhabi draws private-equity firms as secondary deals hit $121 bn

Abu Dhabi attracted new offices from EQT, Pantheon and Eurazeo since mid-September as private-asset secondary transactions reached a record $121 billion in the first half of 2026, Gulf News reported on Nov. 4.

For Abu Dhabi, the Nov. 4 news article framed the office openings as part of competition for a market Bloomberg said may reach $250 billion this year, after $121 billion in six months.

Secondary deals let private-asset investors sell existing fund interests or portfolio stakes rather than wait for exits such as listings or company sales. The Gulf News article, citing Bloomberg, said global firms are expanding in Abu Dhabi to work with sovereign wealth funds, join their investments and buy stakes from portfolios.

EQT, Pantheon and Eurazeo joined a market where Ardian and HarbourVest Partners already had a presence, the article said. Ardian raised $30 billion last year for what the report described as the largest secondary investment platform.

Yassine Zarrouk, managing director and co-head of Ardian Abu Dhabi, told Bloomberg that the firm’s scale makes it a natural partner for large and complex transactions, especially when local investors need liquidity solutions, according to Gulf News.

The attraction is partly structural. Higher interest rates have made asset sales and cash generation more difficult for private-equity investors, while the article said slower initial public offerings have pushed institutions toward secondary markets as an alternative route to liquidity.

Abu Dhabi’s own capital base is central to that pull. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority manages $1.1 trillion in assets, the article said, and Ardian has built ties with ADIA through a secondary real-estate investment platform. Ardian also has partnerships with Mubadala Investment Company in private assets and has expanded its local team since opening in Abu Dhabi in 2023.

Pantheon’s regional push added another data point. Days after opening its Abu Dhabi office in late September, the firm said its latest flagship global private-equity secondaries fund had topped its target with $6 billion in commitments, including what the article described as substantial backing from new Middle Eastern investors.

The article also said the Abu Dhabi Investment Council plans to deploy up to $10 billion over the next three years, while ADIA is adjusting its private-equity investment strategy. PGIM, which manages $1.5 trillion, appointed Lucas Radael to lead its Middle East secondaries business from Abu Dhabi.

Mohamed Abdel-Malek, head of PGIM’s Middle East business, said regional institutions are increasingly using secondary transactions to manage expanding private-market portfolios, according to Gulf News. HarbourVest executive Edward Holdsworth said such relationships could lead either to asset sales for portfolio rebalancing or co-investment partnerships in secondary deals, the article said.

The article identified Abu Dhabi Global Market’s English-common-law framework as another factor supporting complex private-market transactions. The extent to which office openings translate into deal volume in Abu Dhabi was not quantified beyond the global secondary-market figures cited by Evercore and Bloomberg.

By Dec. 31, 2026, the cited benchmark will be whether the private-asset secondary market reaches the Bloomberg-cited expectation of $250 billion in value for the year, after $121 billion in the first half of 2026. Over the three years after Nov. 4, 2026, another observable is whether the Abu Dhabi Investment Council deploys up to $10 billion, as the Gulf News article said it plans to do.