Nico Perazzi

Well, I spent more than 15 years in the region, and ever since COVID, so I'm going back a few years, there was really a sense that the region had arrived, that everything was falling into place.

You had all these positive developments all happening at the same time, right?

You had these giant sovereign wealth funds, they were investing abroad, they were anchoring large deals in entertainment, sports, and artificial intelligence.

The Gulf almost became a lender of last resort.

The contrast with other parts of the world was especially striking because IPO markets in Europe were not doing well.

Here, they were doing exceedingly well.

So for the banks, that fueled expectations that this would be the breakthrough year.

So the mood on the ground here is actually, contrary to what one might expect, not that bad at all.

There's this kind of business as usual image that they're trying to project, which the government is trying to do, but the bankers are trying to reflect that.

Now, obviously, there has been a disruption, right?

So if we look at the numbers, the first quarter went off to a good start this year.

But then you see a drop off in April in M&A volumes, IPOs, the IPO market in the UAE, where I'm based.

It's come to a standstill.

There was not a single IPO since the beginning of this year.

And then you also had this immediate impact, right?

So the financial center was also caught in between one of these attacks.

It was damaged two of the towers.

And so a lot of these international firms feeling threatened, they closed offices.

So a lot of the dealmakers left Dubai, Abu Dhabi until they now start gradually returning.

Yeah, absolutely.