In 2014, the Middle East’s private equity market began to exhibit signs of positive growth. For industry insiders, this development had been a long time in the making. Since the global financial crisis, in which private equity funds in the region were hit hard by imploding real estate markets and tumbling stock prices, the sector had failed to regain anything like the activity it registered in the mid-2000s. This slowdown was compounded by the fallout from the Arab Spring, as political instability escalated and investor sentiment dampened.
“Since the financial crisis and the Arab Spring, we have been waiting for a recovery. We thought conditions were improving in 2013, although it wasn’t until 2014 that progress really began to take hold,” says Amir Arab, a director at regional fund Havenvest Private Equity.