Marwan Bouez and the Levantine dealmakers rewiring mid-market capital for GCC real estate

A generation of dealmakers with roots in the Levant is quietly reshaping how capital enters and circulates within Gulf Cooperation Council real estate. They occupy a specific and consequential position in the market architecture: the space between sovereign mandates measured in billions and the granular, relationship-driven deployment of mid-market vehicles ranging from USD 20 million to USD 150 million. Marwan Bouez, who serves as Head of Multi-Geography Investment Management, Local Real Estate and Infrastructure at Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), is among the most prominent figures in this cohort. His role places him at the nexus of sovereign strategy and on-the-ground deal structuring, a position that carries outsized influence in a market projected to nearly double in value over the coming decade.

The GCC real estate market was valued at USD 141.2 billion in 2025, according to GRI Institute research. Projections from GRI Institute and IMARC Group place that figure at USD 260.3 billion by 2034, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 7.03%. These are not speculative numbers driven by a single asset class or city. The underlying fundamentals are broad: GCC residential supply is expected to grow from 6.26 million units in 2025 to 7.28 million units by 2030, while office supply is estimated to expand from 33.3 million square metres to 42.4 million square metres over the same period, according to Alpen Capital. Dubai alone saw real estate transaction values surge 28.3% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025, per GRI Institute data. The scale of capital required to service this pipeline demands a new class of intermediary, one fluent in both institutional governance and the informal trust networks that define Gulf capital formation.

Who are the Levantine-Gulf dealmakers structuring the next cycle?

The operators defining this category share several characteristics. They hold senior positions at sovereign or quasi-sovereign institutions, or they manage private vehicles that co-invest alongside such entities. They possess deep cultural fluency across the Levant, the Gulf, and often the broader global diaspora. And they are building replicable fund architectures rather than pursuing one-off transactions.

Marwan Bouez's position at PIF illustrates the institutional end of this spectrum. PIF, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, sits at the centre of Saudi Arabia's economic diversification agenda. Bouez's remit across multiple geographies and asset classes, spanning both real estate and infrastructure, positions him as a conduit between the fund's strategic allocation priorities and the specific deal flow that populates its local and regional portfolios. The professionalisation of this function, moving from ad hoc deal sourcing to systematic investment management across geographies, reflects the broader maturation of Gulf sovereign capital.

Karim Mourad occupies an analogous position at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), where he serves as Global Head of Infrastructure. ADIA's mandate and scale are distinct from PIF's, yet Mourad's role reflects the same structural logic: a Levantine-origin executive managing cross-border capital deployment at the highest institutional tier. GCC sovereign wealth funds are projected to manage USD 7.3 trillion by 2030, according to Global SWF and GRI Institute data. The individuals overseeing allocation within these vehicles exercise significant influence over which markets, structures, and counterparties receive capital.

Marwan Dalloul operates at a different point in the capital stack. As President of American Properties (API) and Managing Partner of Dalfa Group, Dalloul structures global real estate investments through private vehicles that bridge Gulf family office capital with opportunities in mature markets and back into the GCC. His profile represents the entrepreneurial dimension of this cohort: the dealmaker who builds proprietary platforms rather than managing within an existing sovereign framework.

Nader Fares, CEO of LP Bens, extends this model into diaspora logistics. Managing major assets such as the 500,900 square metre Cajamar Logistics Center in Brazil, Fares acts as a capital bridge between Latin American operations and GCC investors, demonstrating how Levantine networks convert geographic dispersion into a competitive advantage in asset sourcing.

What unites these operators is their capacity to function as translators. They translate sovereign-scale mandates into executable mid-market transactions, Western institutional standards into Gulf-compatible structures, and diaspora relationships into verified deal flow.

How is Saudi Arabia's regulatory modernisation enabling new capital structures?

The regulatory environment has shifted decisively in favour of the structures these dealmakers are building. Royal Decree No. M/14, effective January 2026, replaced Saudi Arabia's restrictive, purpose-based regime for non-Saudi real estate ownership with a zoning-driven framework. Under the new law, non-Saudis can own real estate within designated Geographical Zones, and fund-based structures enable broader foreign participation beyond those zones.

This is a structural change, not a cosmetic adjustment. The previous regime required non-Saudi investors to demonstrate a specific purpose for ownership, creating friction that steered institutional capital toward indirect exposure through equities or sovereign partnerships. The new framework enables the creation of dedicated real estate funds with direct ownership of underlying assets, precisely the type of mid-market vehicle that operators like Bouez, Dalloul, and their peers are positioned to structure and manage.

For sovereign wealth funds deploying through co-investment mandates, the regulatory shift means that foreign limited partners can now participate more directly in Saudi real estate, reducing the structural complexity and cost of cross-border vehicles. For private dealmakers, it opens a pathway to raise capital from international family offices and institutional investors for Saudi-focused funds without the legal ambiguity that previously constrained such structures.

The timing is significant. Saudi Arabia's giga-project pipeline and the broader Vision 2030 diversification programme are generating demand for capital that exceeds what domestic sources alone can provide. The regulatory modernisation embedded in Royal Decree No. M/14 is a direct response to this capital gap, and the Levantine dealmaker cohort is positioned as a primary channel through which that capital will flow.

Why does the mid-market segment carry outsized strategic importance?

The GCC real estate narrative tends to concentrate on headline transactions: giga-projects, sovereign fund mega-allocations, and trophy asset dispositions. The mid-market segment, encompassing vehicles in the USD 20 million to USD 150 million range, receives less attention but arguably carries greater strategic weight in the current cycle.

Mid-market vehicles serve three functions that larger capital pools cannot replicate efficiently. First, they provide granular market coverage, deploying into secondary locations, niche asset classes, and development-stage opportunities that fall below the threshold of sovereign direct investment. Second, they act as proving grounds for institutional relationships. A family office that co-invests in a USD 50 million vehicle alongside a PIF-affiliated structure gains the track record and trust required for larger future allocations. Third, mid-market funds serve as the primary mechanism for converting diaspora capital into structured Gulf exposure, a flow that is growing in both volume and sophistication.

The professionals structuring these vehicles bring a specific skill set: the ability to navigate the governance expectations of institutional investors while maintaining the speed and flexibility that private Gulf capital demands. This dual fluency, institutional and relational, is the defining competence of the Levantine dealmaker cohort.

As GRI Institute members have observed in recent convenings focused on Gulf capital flows, the professionalisation of mid-market vehicles represents one of the most consequential developments in GCC real estate finance. The operators building these platforms are creating durable infrastructure for capital deployment, not merely executing transactions.

The strategic map ahead

The convergence of sovereign wealth expansion, regulatory modernisation, and demographic-driven demand creates a structural opportunity in GCC real estate that will persist through the end of the decade. The individuals who will capture the greatest share of this opportunity are those who can operate simultaneously across multiple capital pools and regulatory jurisdictions.

Marwan Bouez, Karim Mourad, Marwan Dalloul, and Nader Fares represent distinct nodes in a network that collectively spans sovereign capital, private family offices, diaspora wealth, and institutional co-investment. Their emergence as identifiable figures within industry discourse, visible in search trends and increasingly present at forums such as GRI Institute events, signals a maturation of the GCC market beyond its reliance on a small number of mega-platforms.

The next cycle of GCC real estate will be defined not by the size of individual transactions but by the sophistication of the capital structures that enable them. The Levantine-Gulf dealmaker cohort is building those structures now. The market participants who engage with this network early will have a measurable advantage in accessing the deal flow, co-investment opportunities, and regulatory knowledge that define competitive positioning in a USD 260 billion market.

GRI Institute continues to track the evolution of these capital networks through its dedicated Gulf research and member convenings, providing the strategic intelligence that institutional and private investors require to navigate this rapidly professionalising landscape.