Pantheon opened its first office in Abu Dhabi Global Market and appointed Firas Mallah as Managing Director and Head of Middle East. The new office expands Pantheon’s global footprint to 13 locations across four continents.
Pantheon manages approximately $84 billion in assets.
The firm said the expansion reflects growing demand from Middle Eastern investors for private equity, infrastructure, private credit, secondaries, and co-investment strategies.
Pantheon has built relationships with investors across every Gulf Cooperation Council country over nearly two decades.
The Abu Dhabi office is intended to deepen those relationships and provide more direct regional coverage.
Mallah will lead capital formation efforts with sovereign wealth funds, family offices, financial institutions, and other investors across the Middle East.
He joins Pantheon from Sagard, where he served as Managing Director and Head of MENA.
Mallah brings more than 23 years of experience in capital formation and investor relations across the region.
He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Pantheon highlighted secondaries as a particularly important part of its strategy in the region.
The firm has longstanding private equity secondaries capabilities and also operates private credit and infrastructure secondaries businesses.
Pantheon said these strategies are increasingly attractive to regional investors seeking exposure to mature, diversified private market portfolios with reduced blind-pool risk, shorter J-curves, and earlier distributions.
KEY QUOTES:
“Off the back of a record fundraising year, Pantheon continues to see increasing capital formation across the platform, with a growing share coming from the GCC. With this office, Pantheon reaffirms its commitment to the region and to enhancing and deepening the relationships we have built with clients across every Gulf country for nearly two decades.”
Pantheon Leadership
“The Middle East is one of the fastest-growing sources of capital in private markets, and investors here are increasingly sophisticated about how they want exposure to the asset class.”
Firas Mallah, Managing Director and Head of Middle East at Pantheon
“The firm’s decision to establish its Middle East presence in Abu Dhabi reflects the continued appeal of ADGM as a destination for leading global private markets firms seeking to deepen their engagement with the region’s sophisticated institutional investor base.”
ADGM Leadership
