Why won’t ADIA’s neighbour rent to ADIA’s staff?

Euromoney, March 2015

Next door to Abu Dhabi’ Investment Authority’s distinctive billowing steel-and-glass head office on the Corniche is a still taller construction, the 72-storey Landmark Tower. Grand, bold and with the cachet of being designed by the US architecture firm Pelli Clarke Pelli, it is at least half residential, full of top-end three and four bedroom residential apartments.

Given its location, and given that ADIA’s more than 1500-strong staff cover 60 nationalities and are therefore largely expatriate, one would think this building would be jammed to the rafters with ADIA executives. Strange, then, to learn that the building flat-out refuses to rent to ADIA staff, and is said to have told some visitors who work for the fund to leave the building.

Why? According to estate agents, it’s apparently down to the fact that ADIA insists on using its own contracts when negotiating leases for employees, whereas the building management prefer to set lease contracts themselves. The ADIA lease template, for example, won’t allow more than a set year-on-year increase.

But is there something more to it than that? Some wonder if there is a behind-the-scenes rift among powerful Sheikhs. But ADIA’s chairman is Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, and when the building was being put up, signs outside construction said it was being built for the Department of President’s Affairs – the President, of course, being Sheikh Khalifa. So the rift argument seems an odd one since the same man is ultimately in charge of both buildings.

Meanwhile, the building is not fully leased, while ADIA’s tower of well-paid expats seek lodging further afield. When Euromoney visited the tower in January and even mentioned ADIA in a lift in the presence of a building leasing officer, we were instantly asked if we worked for the mighty sovereign fund. When we said we weren’t, we were swiftly asked if we’d like to move in. Strange goings on indeed.