Mubadala Investment Company intends to keep putting about $39 billion to work each year, regardless of market conditions, according to its chief financial officer, Carlos Obeid. Speaking at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, he said the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund wants to deploy roughly 10 per cent of its portfolio annually.
Obeid said the fund invested about $39 billion last year and plans to repeat that pace. “Every year, we want to deploy that same amount,” he said, adding that the aim is to sustain it through all cycles. Mubadala, which invests on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government, now manages $385 billion in assets after a 17 per cent rise in 2025, driven by growth both in the UAE and abroad. Its holdings span six continents and several asset classes.
Asia is where the fund wants to grow fastest. Three years ago the region made up about 10 per cent of the portfolio; it now accounts for about 13 per cent. Obeid named China, South Korea, India and Japan as the priority markets and said Mubadala has worked steadily to raise its exposure there. He described China as the world’s second-largest economy. In India, the fund’s holdings include Reliance Jio, the telecoms arm of Reliance Industries, and it also invests through Investcorp, in which it owns a 20 per cent stake.
Recent deals show the strategy in practice. Mubadala made a significant minority investment of about $1 billion in Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee, alongside controlling shareholder Centurium Capital. Obeid said the fund’s approach is to partner with leading companies through direct and indirect private equity. It organises its investing around four themes: the energy transition, technology, the reshaping of global supply chains and the changing consumer. Across the wider portfolio, it is active in renewables, mobility, advanced technology, artificial intelligence and life sciences.
Obeid framed the fund’s mandate in two parts: earning returns while tying the UAE economy more closely to the global one. Holding annual deployment at around $39 billion gives Mubadala a steady budget to work with across market cycles. Because the fund has said it wants to keep lifting Asia’s share of the portfolio beyond the current 13 per cent, China, South Korea, India and Japan are set to receive a larger portion of that money in the years ahead.
