Good morning, friends. We have another brisk issue for you this morning, as the news cycle winds down — only slightly — as we head into the new year.

We have plenty of investment (and divestment) news for you, with news of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority selling off another of its UK assets, a new Web3 venture fund in ADGM, and USD 55 mn investments in Anghami and CredibleX.

Emaar rallied at the maximum 15% for the second day after announcing a new dividend policy on Friday that will see it pay up 100% of its share capital in dividends in 2024 and the next few years, driving the DFM benchmark to its highest level since 2014. The index was up 0.6%.

⛅WEATHER- It’s another mostly cloudy day in Dubai, with temperatures peaking at 26°C, before cooling to an overnight low of 18°C. Over in Abu Dhabi, the mercury peaks at a cool 22°C before cooling to 21°C overnight.

WATCH THIS SPACE-

#1- TII rolls out new Falcon series that can run on laptops: The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), an applied research center operating under Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, introduced the latest addition to its open-source large language model (LLM) series, Falcon 3, according to a statement. The LLM ranks among the top models globally operating on a single GPU, and was able to rank first on Hugging Face ’s global third-party LLM leaderboard, surpassing other open-source models like Meta’s Llama.

What does it look like? The LLM is trained on 14 tn tokens, more than double the 5.5 tn tokens of its predecessor, and includes four model sizes that can also operate on laptops.

Background: The UAE rolled out the second iteration of their open-source GenAI model in May, which included the only vision-to-language model capable of converting images into text in the market and had outperformed Meta’s Llama 3 at the time.

More updates to come: Falcon 3 will get new models that introduce multimodal functionalities like text, images, videos, and voice in early January, the statement said,

#2- Drone deliveries are now available at Dubai Silicon Oasis: Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Middle East’s first drone delivery system at Dubai Silicon Oasis with the first order from the Rochester Institute of Technology-Dubai, one of the landing points within the drone delivery network, according to the Dubai Media Office. The launch comes after a few months of pilot operations in DSO, and is a result of collaboration between the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority, Dubai Future Foundation, and China’s Keeta Drone.

Looking ahead: The government is targeting 33% of Dubai to be covered by drone delivery by 2030.

#3- The Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX) is mulling joining the ADX’s Tabadul Digital Exchange Hub, exploring the potential move in a meeting with officials from the ADX where they explored areas of potential cooperation, according to a press release.

What’s Tabadul? Tabadul was launched by the ADX in 2022 to allow online cross-border trading, and currently includes eight exchanges: Amman Stock Exchange, the Armenia Securities Exchange, Bahrain Bourse, Muscat Securities Market, Astana International Exchange, Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, and the ADX.

DATA POINTS-

#1- Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) reported a 5.5% y-o-y increase in power generation in 9M 2024 to 45.1 TWh of power, according to the Dubai Media Office. The authority had 16.9 GW in installed power generation capacity by 3Q, with clean energy accounting for 17% of the total installed capacity.

#2- Banks’ investments in the UAE rose 20.3% y-o-y at the end of September, reaching AED 714.4 bn, according to the central bank’s latest banking indicators report (pdf). This included AED 308.7 bn in debt securities, AED 17.3 bn in stocks, AED 333.6 bn in securities held to maturity, and AED 54.8 bn in other investments.

HAPPENING TODAY-

#1- It’s interest rate day in the United States, with the Federal Reserve kicking off the second day of its final two-day meeting of the year today. The Bank of England and the Bank of Japan will follow suit on Thursday.

Expect the Fed to sound a note of caution. The expectation since Donald Trump cruised to victory last month is now for fewer rate cuts over a longer period of time. A quarter-point cut this week seems fairly likely (though less so than before US voters returned The Donald to office), but the swaps market is pricing in just 75 basis points worth of cuts by next September, suggesting we could see as few as two 25 bps cuts next year. The FT has more on what to expect from the three meetings.

#2- Aims kicked off on Monday and runs through Friday at the Adnec Center in Abu Dhabi. The conference focuses on pure and applied analysis, differential equations, and dynamical systems, covering a wide range of applications in fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, finance, and industrial mathematics.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

No single story is capturing the attention of the foreign pages this morning — among those worth noting:

Japan’s Nissan and Honda are in talks over a potential merger, which could help the auto giants stay resilient in the face of increased competition from EV players. The two sides are expected to ink an MoU soon to officially kick off discussions of “partnership-broadening steps, including the details of a potential merger.” The news sent Nissan’s shares soaring, rising as much as 24%, while Honda’s shares fell as much as 3.4%. (FT | Reuters | Bloomberg | NYT | BBC | The Guardian)

IN NEW YORK — The killing of UnitedHealth’s Brian Thompson stirs public opinion: Luigi Mangione has been indicted for the murder of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson, facing charges of first-degree murder and terrorism after gunning down Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel earlier this month. The killing, described as a “well planned attack meant to sow terror,” has sparked public debate about healthcare costs in the US and donations to Mangione’s legal defense fund. Mangione’s extradition hearing is set for Thursday in Pennsylvania, where he is being held on unrelated gun charges. (Reuters | CNN | NYT | AP)

***

You’re reading EnterpriseAM UAE, your essential daily roundup of business, economics, and must-read news about the UAE, delivered straight to your inbox. We’re out Monday through Friday by 7am UAE time.

EnterpriseAM UAE is available without charge thanks to the generous support of our friends at Mashreq.

Were you forwarded this email? Tap or click here to get your own copy of EnterpriseAM UAE.

Want to send us a story idea, request coverage, ask for a correction, or otherwise get in touch? Reach out to us on UAE@enterpriseAM.com .

DID YOU KNOW that we also cover Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the MENA climate and logistics industries?

***

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *