Author: Stuart

Renovating a property has many moving parts. One of the steady challenges for owners is to link the people who design the work with the people who build it. The design-build model, in which one firm handles both, has grown into a common answer to that challenge. It fits well with residential renovation in markets such as Nova Scotia. The coordination problem In a traditional renovation, an owner might hire a designer or architect to plan the work and a separate contractor to carry it out. That split can open gaps. Designs may not take in the realities of the…

UAE merger activity dropped 37% in the first quarter of 2026, falling to just 33 deals worth US$2.2bn. Yet the decline masks a more complex reality: investors aren’t retreating—they’re recalibrating. According to Ansarada’s latest Middle East M&A Market Analysis, the broader region recorded 196 announced transactions valued at US$23.3bn during Q1, down from 207 deals worth US$31.3bn in the same period last year. The UAE’s sharper decline—from 52 deals in Q1 2025 to 33 this year—reflects what Justin Smith, managing director at the AI-powered virtual data room platform, characterised as a strategic pause rather than a crisis of confidence. “While…

Maamoor Khan drives under constant watch now. Every acceleration, every corner, every hard press of the brake—captured by cameras installed above his dashboard and transmitted back to fleet managers at Dulsco Group’s Dubai headquarters. He recently achieved Silver Status for logging over 1,000 hours of safe driving. The monitoring helped, he acknowledged. “The new safety systems have helped all of us become more aware and confident as professional drivers on the road,” Khan explained. “The real-time feedback and ongoing training encourage us to improve every day, not just for ourselves but for our passengers, colleagues and everyone sharing the roads.”…

On June 1st, 2026, senior executives gathered at the Amman Stock Exchange for a bell-ringing ceremony that marked more than regional courtesy. The event welcomed Jordan’s bourse into Tabadul, the cross-border trading platform operated by Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. Among those present was Abdel Hadi Al Sa’di, chief executive of BHM Capital, who had flown in knowing his firm was about to claim a competitive first. Two days later, BHM Capital confirmed it had become the first financial institution in the UAE to activate client access to Amman’s stock market through the platform. The Dubai-listed broker beat domestic rivals to…

Rihan Heights offers a concrete reference point for Shaher Awartani’s connection to Abu Dhabi’s construction sector. The project ties to a specific development, a dated contract award, a defined joint venture structure, and a documented role for Silver Coast Construction & Boring in one phase of the Arzanah development. Shaher Awartani co-founded Silver Coast Construction & Boring in Abu Dhabi in 1997 and serves as its Chairman. Rihan Heights provides a project-level example of the large residential construction work the company has delivered, and it gives the construction side of his public profile a named site, a dated contract, and…

Orange Business logged a pattern across the Middle East and Africa by early June 2026: enterprises weren’t asking how to recover faster anymore. They wanted systems that never stopped running in the first place. The shift reflects a sobering calculation. When infrastructure faces prolonged instability—whether from geopolitical flare-ups, power disruptions, or cascading failures—traditional disaster recovery planning offers cold comfort. Restore services after an incident? Fine for a server crash. Less useful when conditions remain volatile for weeks. CIOs across the MEA region are rewiring their thinking. Out: reactive recovery plans gathering dust in binders. In: architectures designed to maintain critical…

Transguard Group now grants 85 calendar days of fully paid maternity leave to eligible staff, a figure that significantly exceeds the UAE’s statutory minimum. The Dubai-based business solutions provider revealed on Sunday that it has extended equivalent entitlements to employees adopting infants or taking permanent guardianship of young children. The policy applies to all female employees who have completed one year of service, regardless of their role or function within the organisation. It marks a substantial leap beyond the baseline protections mandated under UAE Labour Law. What sets the initiative apart is the newly introduced adoption leave framework. Employees of…

Damco Solutions has modernized 200 million lines of legacy code across 31 enterprise programs. On 5th May, Gartner named the Princeton-based firm a Representative Vendor in its 2026 Market Guide for Mainframe and Legacy System Professional and Managed Services. The recognition focuses specifically on Damco’s IBM i and AS400 modernization work—the unglamorous backbone of banking, manufacturing, and insurance systems that still process billions in transactions daily. While competitors have diversified into cloud and mobile, Damco built its entire operation around keeping decades-old systems alive. Founded in 1996, the company has never strayed from its original mission. “We believe this recognition…

IHS Towers reported zero workplace fatalities across its operations in 2025 while training more than 140,000 students in digital skills. The figures, disclosed Monday in the company’s latest sustainability report, cap an eight-year period during which the telecoms infrastructure operator spent $45 million on community programmes across Africa and Latin America. Not a single recordable injury among employees. The achievement stands out in an industry where tower maintenance crews work at height daily, often in remote locations across seven countries. IHS operates over 37,000 communications towers spanning Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, making it one…

Modular infrastructure supplier MODULE-T has set up MODULE-T UK, a dedicated British company that will handle sales and client support across the UK market. The launch reflects continued growth in demand for modular construction across Europe, as more organisations choose off-site solutions to put operational infrastructure in place quickly and with less disruption than a conventional build. With over 15 years of operating history and exports to more than 120 countries, MODULE-T offers British clients a range that covers portable office cabins, WC and sanitary units, changing rooms, storage containers, flat-pack cabins and prefabricated modular buildings. Flexible solutions help partners…