Abu Dhabi has seen a steady stream of companies wanting to list over the past five years, and its stock exchange says the effect has been to change the shape of the market. In an interview with Gulf News, Matthias Büchler, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), said the venue has been among the largest listing destinations in the world during that time.
ADX is now among the world’s top 20 stock markets by market capitalisation, with listed companies worth around Dh2.9 trillion.
Why companies keep coming
Büchler attributes the demand to factors on both the supply and demand sides of the market. On supply, Abu Dhabi’s access to capital has helped generate a pipeline of listings. On demand, ADX has spent recent years making it easier for retail and international investors to take part.
“Today, ADX is fully connected to all the financial centres in the world,” he said, pointing to seamless onboarding and trading for investors. That connectivity is a large part of the pitch to companies weighing where to list.
More investors, more activity
Participation keeps rising. ADX has onboarded another 30,000 investors this year. In the first half, foreign investors accounted for 77 per cent of new registrations.
The first-half figures give a sense of scale:
- Trading value: Dh171 billion by the end of June
- Trading volume: 50.3 billion shares
- Trades completed: almost 3.3 million
- Institutional share of trading value: 78 per cent
- International investors’ share: 48 per cent
Büchler also cited a record-level day of Dh3.5 billion in traded value and around Dh50 billion in dividends distributed so far this year.
Recovering from regional disruption
The exchange has come through a testing period. Regional tensions strained market infrastructure across the Gulf, but Büchler says ADX had spent years preparing. He said 97 per cent of the index has recovered after the recent disruption, and 55 per cent of listed companies have higher share prices than before the events.
“Resilience is nothing you build overnight,” he said. The measures behind it include:
- an upgraded technology stack and adoption of global market standards
- the separation of parts of its post-trade business into a separate legal entity
- a core platform upgrade, with AD Clear and AD CSD set up as separate subsidiaries
- hybrid cloud capabilities
- revised circuit-breaker floors and updated short-selling protocols
Shorter-term mechanisms were also introduced during the crisis to manage volatility.
Global links deepen
ADX has been building ties with overseas institutions. HSBC has become its first foreign General Clearing Member, and Morgan Stanley has joined as its first international remote trading participant. The exchange added four listings in the first half, including two dual-listed exchange-traded funds from the New York Stock Exchange.
The next phase: liquidity, tokenisation and data
Looking ahead, ADX’s strategy centres on liquidity. In market terms, Büchler explained, that means more listings and more products, so investors can choose from a wider range of assets, along with a more diverse investor base.
Digital infrastructure is a growing focus. ADX launched a sandbox with DFNS on 20 September to start developing tokenisation and digital-wallet capabilities in Abu Dhabi. Büchler described it as a first step towards future-proofing the capital market. The exchange has also made its market data available through an AI-enabled protocol, so investors running their own models can consume ADX data in an AI-ready format.
“We hope to have many more IPOs to come from the Abu Dhabi ecosystem and also elsewhere,” Büchler said.
What it means for investors
For retail and institutional investors, the message is that Abu Dhabi is trying to combine depth with access: more companies to choose from, more ways to trade them and infrastructure that overseas participants recognise. Whether that translates into further IPO momentum will depend on market conditions and on how quickly regional tensions ease.
For now, ADX’s own numbers point to a market that has grown in size and diversity over five years and has so far absorbed a major shock. The exchange says its priorities are more listings, wider participation and continued investment in the technology behind it.
