Mergers on the Rise:

Mergers of companies in the UAE have become increasingly common in recent years. Among the more highly publicised were Emirates Bank’s merger with National Bank of Dubai in 2007 to form Emirates NBD, and Aldar’s merger with Sorouh in 2013. Then, in July 2016, the boards of First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi approved a merger of FGB and NBAD to form what is likely to produce the largest bank in the MENA region. Subsequent to this, it has been announced that Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company will merge with the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) and, in just the last few days (at the time of writing), it has been announced that each of Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research, the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Institute and the Masdar Institute will merge.