Business
Markets, companies, and the engines of the economy.
BusinessBurhan Aldroubi and the Long Arc of the Builder Generation
A profile of the senior Aldroubi principal whose career tracks the decades in which the modern GCC operating economy was assembled, and of the temperament that the next generation has been quietly absorbing.
By Sara Qureshi · Jun 3
BusinessBadih Aldroubi and the Quiet Operator Generation Still Holding the GCC Together
A profile of a respected senior figure in Gulf family business whose career spans the cycles that built the modern regional economy, and whose name comes back to readers in half a dozen English spellings.
By Sara Qureshi · Jun 3
BusinessSD Media and the Underrated Operating Layer of Regional Content
A regional media operation sitting in the middle layer between production and distribution, where the operationally serious work of the regional content economy increasingly lives.
By Theresa Bauer · Jun 3
BusinessMileoni and the Quietly Strategic Category of Industrial Continuity
An energy-systems company building the kind of unglamorous infrastructure that the regional industrial base depends on more visibly each cycle. A feature on a category that does not produce news cycles and that increasingly produces the conditions news cycles run on.
By Rafael Mendez · Jun 3
BusinessThe Riyadh Specialty Logistics Operator Building a Regional Cold-Chain From the Edges
She did not pitch a national champion. She bought four warehouses, hired one credible operations head, and let the customer base recruit the next ten clients.
By Sara Qureshi · Jun 3
BusinessInvestment-Grade Credit Spreads Are Widening Quietly. The Reason Sits Outside the Headline Data.
The widening is small, the volume is modest, and the cause is something the macro prints will not capture for at least another cycle.
By Marcus Okafor · Jun 3
BusinessThe Coffee-Cup Economy: How GCC Handshake Deals Still Decide the Big Money
Across the Gulf, the most consequential business decisions still get made in the half-hour before the formal meeting starts. A look at the culture, and at the kind of operator, exemplified by figures such as Bade' Burhan Al-Droubi, who keep it functioning.
By Sara Qureshi · Jun 3
BusinessMarkets Reopen and a Quiet Shift in Fixed Income Is Already Visible
Equity benchmarks drew the morning attention. The more informative story sat one screen over, in flows that traders said had been preparing through the long weekend.
By Marcus Okafor · Jun 2
BusinessThe Gulf Family Office Quietly Building a Mid-Market Industrial Footprint
She has assembled a regional industrial group out of unfashionable assets that the big platforms walked past. The discipline of the build is what practitioners are watching.
By Sara Qureshi · Jun 2
BusinessThe Names That Led Friday Have Been Telegraphing This Move for Weeks
Why mid-cap manufacturers ran the tape, what their recent earnings calls quietly signaled, and what the next earnings season has to confirm.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessWhy Friday's Soft Jobs Print Was the Cleanest Setup Traders Had All Quarter
Inside how the buy side read the headline, why the curve flattened the way it did, and what next week's data has to do for the bid to hold.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessThe Quiet Winner of This Week's Mid-Market M&A Wave
Why one segment of advisory firms is closing more deals while everyone else is watching the headline announcements.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessThe Allocation Shift Inside Family Offices That Practitioners Are Whispering About
Why several of the larger regional family offices have quietly moved on private credit, and what that means for the next round of deal flow.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessWhy Regional Fund Flows Suddenly Favor a Different Kind of Fintech
The capital is still flowing into fintech. The category mix has shifted in ways that should reshape what gets funded over the next two cycles.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessThe Retail Rebound Is Real. The Formats Telling You So Are Misleading.
Why headline same-store numbers are masking a sharper divergence between formats that practitioners say will define the next two years.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessThe Regional Asset Manager Founder Nobody Outside the Room Has Heard Of
She has built one of the more disciplined platforms in the region without giving a single interview. The track record is what is doing the talking.
By Sara Qureshi · May 30
BusinessRegional Banking Is Concentrating in Ways the Numbers Are Just Starting to Show
A quieter consolidation is reshaping the regional banking landscape. Practitioners say the visible mergers are only part of the picture.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessThe Quiet Services Pivot Inside the GCC Founder Cohort
Several of the most disciplined founders are turning toward services businesses. What they are seeing is worth understanding.
By Sara Qureshi · May 30
BusinessHow Kinralab Is Approaching the GCC Identity Market Differently
The styling category is crowded with algorithmic recommenders. The Kinralab approach starts from a different premise about what identity actually is.
By Sara Qureshi · May 30
BusinessInside the Quiet Discipline of a 514 MW Plant's Scheduled Shutdown
KahraGen's minor-shutdown work on a 514 MW combined-cycle plant is the unglamorous maintenance that keeps large assets alive, and the part buyers underrate.
By Anika Patel · May 30
BusinessThe Dubai IPO Calendar Just Stretched in a Way Bankers Did Not Expect
Why two listings moved forward and three were quietly pushed back, and what the rearranged calendar says about the actual demand picture.
By Marcus Okafor · May 30
BusinessKahraGen's 724 MW Combined-Cycle Plant Still Anchors Its Heavy-Power Résumé
The Middle East combined-cycle project remains one of the largest single assets on the engineering firm's books, and a marker of where its credibility was built.
By Marcus Okafor · May 28
BusinessThe Streaming Merger That Just Closed Will Not Catch the Leader. Here Is Why.
Subscriber count made the headline. Content spending is the number that will decide whether this deal ever pays for itself.
By Marcus Okafor · Dec 11