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First Abu Dhabi Bank has mandated a group of global and regional banks to arrange investor calls on Wednesday, 19 November, signalling the preparation of a benchmark USD-denominated Additional Tier 1 capital issuance. The Abu Dhabi-based lender, rated Aa3 by Moody’s and AA- by both S&P and Fitch, is targeting a fixed-rate, resettable perpetual instrument with a non-call six-year structure, expected to be rated Baa3 by Moody’s, subject to market conditions.

FAB has appointed Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Barclays, Emirates NBD Capital, itself, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers and bookrunners for the issuance, reflecting a strong syndicate backing. According to institutional-market briefings, the period of investor calls is intended to gauge pricing, demand, and issuance size ahead of launch.

This move marks FAB’s first benchmark AT1 issuance in approximately five years and comes as the bank seeks to bolster its capital buffer amid evolving regulatory expectations. Market-specialist commentary notes that such securities serve a dual purpose: providing permanent capital that counts towards Tier 1 regulatory ratios while offering issuers the flexibility of a call option after a set period — in this case six years — to redeem, subject to certain conditions.

FAB’s prior issuance of a senior green bond earlier this month — a €850 million deal priced at mid-swaps plus 70 basis points after opening at plus 100 basis points — underlined its readiness to access capital markets. That deal illustrated investor appetite for the bank’s funding instruments and the bank’s willingness to tap diverse instruments and jurisdictions. The proposed AT1 issuance broadens FAB’s capital-raising toolkit further.

In assigning an expected rating of Baa3 by Moody’s for the proposed issue, the bank is effectively targeting the lowest investment-grade category from that agency for this level of instrument. Such ratings reflect the subordinated nature of AT1 securities; they rank lower than senior debt in the creditor hierarchy and often incorporate features such as coupon discretion and loss-absorption mechanisms — factors that carry higher credit risk for investors compared to senior bonds.

Emerging-markets commentators note that demand for Gulf-region AT1 securities has been relatively scant over the past year as investors have weighed macro-economic headwinds, rising interest-rate environments and regulatory adjustments. The Gulf region’s total primary issuance of bonds and sukuk for the first quarter of the year was reported at USD 51.5 billion, down from USD 55.5 billion in the same period a year prior; within this, financial-institution capital instruments formed a subset of activity. Nevertheless, select banks continue to tap issuance windows that align with investor sentiment.

For FAB, the timing appears strategic: the bank’s common equity Tier 1 ratio stands at 13.7 per cent — a figure comfortably above its internal threshold of 13.5 per cent but lower than the 14.3 per cent recorded a year earlier. This suggests room for issuing capital-absorption securities like AT1 to reinforce buffers without triggering market concern. Regulatory changes also loom: UAE banks are due to face a 50-basis-point increase in the counter-cyclical buffer next year, which will raise total capital requirements and heighten the capital-management imperative.

Investor calls scheduled on 19 November are expected to cover structuring options, timing of launch, target size and investor syndication. Initial market commentary anticipates that FAB may aim for a headline size in the region of USD 750 million — consistent with its last AT1 benchmark in 2020 — although precise sizing will hinge on demand and market dynamics.

The joint bookrunners assemble a strong global footprint: Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered provide global investor access while Emirates NBD Capital and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank offer regional distribution strength. That reflects FAB’s dual aim of tapping both GCC-based and international institutional investors. Market observers believe that if oversubscription builds, pricing could tighten relative to initial guidance and the syndicate may consider increasing sizing accordingly.

US-based artificial intelligence firm Luma AI has secured a $900 million Series C funding round led by Saudi-backed HUMAIN, the AI venture owned by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. Participation also came from AMD Ventures and existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Amplify Partners and Matrix Partners. The funding is part of a broader strategy to advance multimodal artificial general intelligence capable of generating, interpreting and interacting with the physical world.

Luma AI’s valuation following the round is estimated at over $4 billion, underscoring the intense competition among frontier AI firms. The company specialises in “world models” that integrate video, audio, image and language to drive applications in robotics, simulation, advertising, gaming and personalised education. CEO Amit Jain described the aim as training systems on “a quadrillion tokens” of multimedia data to move beyond current large-language-model architectures.

HUMAIN, having positioned itself as a global full-stack AI player, will use the funding partnership to anchor its compute infrastructure ambitions. The joint roadmap includes the rollout of what HUMAIN terms “Project Halo” — a super-cluster targeting up to 2 gigawatts of AI compute capacity in the kingdom. Luma AI will become a key customer of this infrastructure.

The funding and infrastructure build-out reflect a strategic shift in Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification efforts. Under the leadership of Mohammed bin Salman, the PIF is deepening commitments to AI and high-performance computing as pillars of its wider Vision 2030 agenda. Luma AI’s partnership becomes a vehicle for exportable AI capabilities and for strengthening the kingdom’s position in the global tech ecosystem.

From Luma AI’s perspective, the capital infusion and access to sovereign-scale compute represent a strategic lever to accelerate development of next-generation models. In entertainment and creative industries the company already claims traction: its Ray3 reasoning video model has been embedded within major platforms. The new funding will allow expansion into simulation, robotics and immersive media. Jain asserted that only by integrating systems and infrastructure at scale can models “understand and simulate the universe”.

For HUMAIN the deal accomplishes several objectives: securing a marquee US AI partner, anchoring compute commitments, and beginning commercial deployments of its planned AI infrastructure. The first phase of the accompanying joint venture with Cisco Systems and AMD will deliver a 100-megawatt data-centre cluster in Saudi Arabia, fully subscribed by Luma AI, with construction scheduled to begin in 2026 and renewable energy powering the facility.

The global implications are significant. With Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East and Africa identified as target markets-worth an estimated 4.5 billion people-the infrastructure build-out promises to reshape the geography of AI training and inference. HUMAIN’s model seeks to challenge the dominance of US- and China-based AI supply chains.

Challenges remain. Developing multimodal AGI is widely acknowledged as highly complex, with technical risks, high compute costs and uncertain commercial timelines. Critics highlight concerns about geopolitical dependencies in AI infrastructure and the ethical implications of deploying models trained on vast multimedia datasets. The Saudi-US dimension adds further scrutiny given strategic sensitivities around data, export controls and digital sovereignty.

Dubai-based upstream operator Dragon Oil has announced a major new oil discovery offshore Egypt’s Gulf of Suez, a development that industry watchers say could underpin its ambition to boost production significantly by 2026. The company, a unit of Emirates National Oil Company, made the find at its North-East Ramadan Concession, reaching a total depth of 13,425 feet to intersect the Crystal NER-1X reservoir in the Honey Sand formation. Initial wireline logs confirmed a 224-foot hydrocarbon column, indicating meaningful commercial potential.

The well was drilled under the company’s commitment agreement in the NE Ramadan concession in partnership with Egypt’s Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company. The pair of state-owned Egyptian entities jointly operate with Dragon Oil in the concession. The flow to production is projected at around 3,000 barrels per day once the well is tied into existing infrastructure. Final wireline logging, core sampling and reservoir evaluation are underway before full integration into the production grid scheduled for July.

The discovery supports Dragon Oil’s longer-term plan to raise output from its current base of more than 140,000 barrels of oil per day and achieve an aggregate target of roughly 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026, according to the company’s investor materials. The Gulf of Suez investment follows earlier gains from assets in Turkmenistan, Iraq and Algeria. Additionally, the firm signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with PETRONAS in late October to explore upstream growth opportunities in Asia-Pacific and other frontier regions, signalling a willingness to pursue both organic and acquisition-driven expansion.

In Turkmenistan, Dragon Oil expects production to rise to approximately 200,000 bopd by 2030, leveraging digital-technology programmes such as artificial-intelligence-enabled reservoir modelling and real-time monitoring. The company has invested more than US$11 billion in the country’s oil sector since the production-sharing agreement began in 1999 and has added more than 200 social-development projects in local regions. That upstream base remains a pillar of its global growth model.

Analysts say the Egyptian find is particularly significant because it taps an under-developed offshore domain using advanced Ocean-Bottom Node seismic technology that identified the Honey Sand formation. The drilling from the existing Al-Fanar platform avoided major new infrastructure investment, improving cost efficiency and time to tie-in. The fact that Dragon Oil already holds the working interest via its GUPCO joint venture means it can fast-track upstream investment and production.

Nevertheless, a number of risks remain. The Egyptian concession still requires commercial validation of reservoir behaviour and sustained flow testing; many wells encounter initial signs of hydrocarbons but fail to deliver long-term viability. The broader upstream industry is also under increasing pressure from the energy-transition agenda and environmental-regulation developments. Investors and stakeholders will watch closely how Dragon Oil balances growth ambitions with the demands of sustainability, given the global shift away from fossil fuels.

Company leadership emphasises that the teamwork between its Dubai and Cairo operations, together with EGPC and GUPCO partners, reflects a mature technical capability that bodes well for further exploration success. Chief Executive Abdulkarim Ahmed Al Maazmi said the technical result “demonstrates the strength of our technical partnership and underlines our vision to unlock new opportunities across our assets in Egypt.”

Regionally, the Gulf of Suez has been a mature producing basin, yet the new find suggests there remains untapped potential when combined with modern subsurface imaging and drilling techniques. Some energy-sector commentators believe the discovery could encourage other operators to revisit older fields or deeper formations, heightening competition.

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