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Zest Wire | 10-December-2025

Zest Wire | 10-December-2025

Announcing our two new regulated services and a license from Abu Dhabi Global Market ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).

December 10, 2025

This week’s agenda

📰 What’s new at Zest?

💰 Capital activity across MENA private markets

💼 M&A highlights

📈 Family office insights of the week

📖 What we’re reading

💡 From the feed

Let’s dive in!

What’s new at Zest?

We are excited to share that Zest has been newly granted a license from Abu Dhabi Global Market ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).

We have launched two new regulated services. Together with our SPV product, they form the three pillars of the Zest platform.

🔹 SPVs - Simplify
Launch SPVs to group your investors into one clean investment vehicle, streamline governance, and execute digitally.

🔹 Escrow - Safeguard (FSRA Regulated)
Leverage regulated escrow services to gather funds securely in escrow, and hold and release them only when the conditions for your transaction are met.

🔹 Distribution - Scale (FSRA Regulated)
Facilitate private capital flows through regulated channels used by deal makers across our network.

Your private market workflow, ready for every transaction.

Read more from our announcement with Business Insider here.

Market moves: Capital activity across MENA

🇸🇦 erad secures a $125 million facility led by Jeffries to scale Sharia-compliant lending solutions for SMEs.
🇦🇪 Mastiska raises $10 million to build data-center-class inference accelerators, backed by GCC sovereign funds.
🇸🇦 COGNNA closes $9.2m Series A to scale its cybersecurity platform globally.
🇦🇪 Reno raises $4m to expand its AI-driven renovation platform across the GCC.
🇸🇦 Nabt extends its seed round to support fresh-produce supply-chain infrastructure.
🇦🇪 Byit secures $1.1m to scale its brokerage model into Saudi Arabia.

M&A highlights

🇧🇭 CoinMENA acquired by Paribu for up to $240 million, one of Turkey’s largest fintech acquisitions to date. Source
🇪🇬 GlobalFoundries acquired InfiniLink, expanding its silicon photonics portfolio. Source

Family office insight of the week

Goldman Sachs’ 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report shows:

MENA family offices allocate 46% of their portfolios to alternatives
Matching the Americas
Reinforcing the region’s role as one of the most active private-market hubs globally

Full report here.

Private equity and family office insights

PE survey signals positive outlook for 2026, with AI bringing risks, rewards | PitchBook

Alternative asset managers remain optimistic about stronger realization activity as the exit pipeline expands alongside improving transaction and IPO conditions.

OTPP: GPs should consider ‘early wins’ to deliver liquidity | PEI

Fund managers don’t need to wait for the perfect, full potential exit,’ senior managing director Cindy Yan tells PEI.

LP Perspectives 2026: Seven LP opinions that matter | PEI

Key takeaways from our annual survey tracking investor sentiment towards private equity and the wider private funds industry.

Key trends in PE’s private wealth push | PEI

Record-high financial holdings are driving individual investors towards private markets in search of better returns.

Capital flows and strategy

Saudi PE Market Forecast: $13.5B by 2033 | Saudi Arabia Market Research

Saudi Private Equity market forecast shows 7.1% CAGR to $13.5B by 2033, led by Vision 2030, AI innovation, and 45% MENA deal share in H1 2025.

Could evergreen funds provide the exit GP stakes investors want? | PitchBook

These perpetual, cash-generative investments could finally find a home in this rapidly expanding corner of the private markets.

Secondary buyers turn to middle-market continuation funds | PitchBook

Nearly half of respondents to a survey by investment bank Lazard reported shifting their focus downmarket in 2025

Private markets to account for more than half of global asset management industry revenues by 2030 | PWC

Private market revenues are set to reach US $432.2 billion and account for more than half of the total global asset management industry’s revenues by 2030.

Regulation watch

UAE Central Bank Issues New Central Bank Law Consolidating Financial Sector Regulation | Gibson Dunn

This update summarises the most significant reforms introduced by the New CBUAE Law and the implications for financial institutions operating in the UAE.

From the feed

Talal Tabbaa | Paribu acquisition of CoinMENA

After months of hard work (and a due-diligence process that aged me a few years), CoinMENA is officially becoming part of Paribu, Türkiye’s leading digital asset platform and one of the sharpest teams I’ve met in this industry. Some random important lessons I learned along the way 👇

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