GCC Royal Private Offices Manage Close To $500 Billion In Assets: Report

The emergence of RPOs in the Gulf in recent years has also prompted the establishment of additional or parallel entities in states where funds already existed.

This is most evident in the GCC, where new funds linked to specific individuals or extended families have emerged in recent years, the report by Deloitte said, Zawya reported.

Describing these entities as ones that “wield significant assets and their remits often appear to overlap partly with the established players,” the report pointed out that the “line between ruling family offices or state-controlled funds is often blurred”.

GCC RPOs drive wealth growth

Sovereign wealth fund tracker Global SWF has identified 35 RPOs in the GCC, with the UAE home to a vast majority of these offices.

The most significant of them is the Royal Group, a family enterprise that serves as the tentpole to Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s business empire, wielding almost $300 billion in AUM, according to data by industry tracker, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

The Royal Group is the biggest shareholder of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign-backed International Holding Company (IHC), owning a 61 per cent stake in the company, according to LSEG data.

In 2024, IHC also formed a new holding company 2PointZero with a $27 billion portfolio across industries, from asset management to mining, that was set to be transferred from the Royal Group, Reuters reported at the time.

Such parallel or spin-off funds are also on the rise in the GCC, Deloitte noted, citing the example of the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) which announced the creation of the breakaway Dubai Investment Fund (DIF) in 2023.

DIF was formed to hold the emirate’s stakes in utilities and road toll operators, and be responsible for “investing Dubai government funds, surpluses and the general reserve, domestically and abroad”.

The report said an inevitable push into the private credit space for these RPOs has also been gaining momentum over the past few years.

In 2022, Chimera Capital (now Lunate), an affiliate of the Royal Group’s Chimera Investment, partnered with the US-headquartered Alpha Wave Global to launch a $2 billion open-ended credit fund to make loans to middle-market companies.

Two years later, the $110 billion alternative asset manager Lunate was reportedly interested in acquiring a minority stake in global private credit leader HPS Partners, with Deloitte noting that Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala had also made moves to form at least seven partnerships with Apollo, Ares, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs, committing over $5 billion to private credit investments both domestically within the UAE and internationally.

Growing clout pushes total AUM globally to $12tr

The growing clout of the Gulf has been spearheaded by its SWFs, prompting an industry-wide expansion that pushed total assets under management (AUM) globally to $12 trillion last year, with a forecast to reach $18 trillion by 2030.

Gulf funds now control approximately 40 per cent of global SWF assets and represent six of the 10 largest funds worldwide by AUM, playing an instrumental part in “reshaping investment strategies amid increasing regional competition and evolving market dynamics,” Deloitte said.

The five major players in this region include the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company, Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

A strategic pivot towards Asia has been gaining momentum, with the report stating that many Gulf SWFs have established new offices throughout Asia-Pacific and substantially increased allocations to high-growth economies including China, India, and Southeast Asia.