ADGM’s watchword was caution – not any more

Capital Letter is Frank Kane’s weekly series on Abu Dhabi’s money, power and ambition

The website of The National newspaper shows my first byline about Abu Dhabi Global Market dated October 2 2013, written when the project was barely more than a federal decree and a five-man board.

The message then, from founding chairman Ahmed Al Sayegh, was deliberate and unhurried: he spoke of actions that would be “deliberate, pragmatic and governed by taking the time to put the right foundations in place”.

The ambition, as stated, was modest – “critical mass” by the end of the following year. It eventually launched formally as Abu Dhabi Global Market in 2015.

Fast forward to ADGM today, and you find an institution that has shed that early caution entirely.

The physical transformation is the most visible evidence. The decision in 2023 to fold Al Reem Island into ADGM’s jurisdiction was crucial. It joined Al Maryah Island, which is full at 95 percent occupancy, to form the core of the offshore financial centre.

Reem at that point was largely unexploited potential, 10 times the existing footprint. Now, that potential has become a forest of cranes, towers, marinas and mixed-use developments aiming to stitch Reem into Maryah’s financial gravity – a residential urban hinterland for ADGM.

The Galleria Mall has expanded alongside it, full of – as you’d expect – upmarket brands such as Apple, Tiffany and Gucci, but also more down-to-earth facilities like minimarts, pharmacies and a bookshop: the small signs of liveability that are prerequisites for financial centres from Tokyo to Manhattan.

The ADGM headquarters building itself is in mid-refurbishment – a facelift due to complete this autumn – and the last unused part of Al Maryah is also being developed in a $16.3 billion project to double premium office space.

By land area, the ADGM free zone is now, by some distance, the largest financial centre in the world – bigger than the City of London, bigger than Wall Street, bigger than Singapore’s central business district combined.

The business numbers have accelerated in step. First-quarter 2026 figures show assets under management up 57 percent year on year, active licences rising 27 percent to more than 13,000, and a roll call of institutional bluebloods – Capital Group, Barings and Bain Capital among them – committing operations representing $4.4 trillion in global AUM.

ADGM officials, speaking candidly if not for attribution, say the pace has not slackened materially in the second quarter, war notwithstanding. Operations continued throughout the Iran conflict, licensing processes did not pause and the forward pipeline of applications remains 40 percent ahead of where bookings currently stand.

This burst of frenetic activity in recent years is not coincidental. It follows the post-pandemic strategy set by Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, who became ADGM chairman in 2021 after a career that included the Adnoc Group CFO role – and who simultaneously chairs the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, giving him a rare line of sight across both the emirate’s financial centre and its broader economic policy.

Officials describe the years since his appointment as a deliberate inflection point: foundations laid in the founding years, a pause through Covid-19, then sustained acceleration from 2022 onward that ADGM insiders now say is unmatched, globally, for a financial centre of any size.

The ambition that follows from this is explicit and unembarrassed: a top-five global financial centre. ADGM currently ranks 21st on the most widely cited international index, a considerable distance from the New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong cohort it aspires to join.

Officials argue the comparison should not rest on deal volume or market capitalisation alone. Abu Dhabi, they say, is playing an institutional, value-driven game rather than a transactional one, reflecting an emirate built on sovereign wealth rather than trading volumes – all sitting in the middle of $3 trillion in assets.

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While the ambition is plain to see, the timeline for reaching top-five status is not definitive, and ADGM faces serious competition from Dubai and Riyadh for the regional crown. We will see how this plays out, especially in the Gulf’s changing dynamics after the Iran war.

What is not in doubt is the ambition of the place. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, was hosted by President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed at Zuma on Al Maryah Island last week – a small fact, but a telling one about the calibre of policymakers who now feel at home there.

They could have gone to a royal palace, or a glittering five-star hotel, but they chose to dine within ADGM.

I had lunch at Zuma myself a few days later, on an ordinary Monday in the dead heat of summer, when much of the Gulf empties out. It was buzzing: Emirati ladies-who-lunch, businesspeople trading notes over black cod, and a few who seemed to be doing nothing more than watching the skyline change on the ADGM horizon.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist.