UAE-listed stocks top $1 trillion in value for the first time

Stocks listed in the United Arab Emirates are now worth more than $1 trillion for the first time, helped by a surge in firms tied to an Abu Dhabi royal that account for more than a third of the total value, and a flurry of local listings.

That makes the combined UAE market, which includes exchanges in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, bigger than Milan or Madrid. While dwarfed by the nearly $3 trillion

Saudi Arabian bourse, the UAE is larger than most emerging markets, barring a few like India and China, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A particularly eye-catching feature of the $1 trillion milestone is the weighting of companies linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The royal — one of Abu Dhabi’s two deputy rulers, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother to its president — has emerged as one of the most important names in global business and sits atop a $1.5 trillion empire.

That includes International Holding Co., which is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon and is the UAE’s largest public company. IHC has surged over 43,000% in the past few years, giving it a market capitalization of close to $250 billion — a quarter of the combined exchanges’ value.