Meanwhile, investment bank Lazard Inc., which held sale talks with Abu Dhabi fund ADQ last year, is making a big push in Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg News has reported.

While both cities have embarked on similar drives to lure the world’s biggest firms, the past couple of years have also brought into sharp relief shifting priorities for officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and the kinds of partnerships they’re seeking.

For instance, Saudi Arabia, with its large and relatively young population, is prioritizing projects aimed at developing its infrastructure, which significantly lags the UAE.

But with finances constrained as a result of weak oil prices, it needs to bring in more foreign capital – hence the desire to get the world’s biggest infrastructure fund managers into the country. Case in point: Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.’s new $2 billion Middle East vehicle.

“People used to come to us and ask for money,” Yasir Al Rumayyan, the governor of the kingdom’s nearly $1 trillion Public Investment Fund, said on a panel at the FII last month. “We are now seeing a shift from people wanting to take our money to people wanting to co-invest.”

Saudi Arabia is also becoming a regional opportunity for investment banks. The kingdom is in the midst of a vast privatization program to raise cash to fund investment plans, and that’s transformed Riyadh into a hotspot for initial public offerings.

For Abu Dhabi, with energy riches outweighing the ability of the local economy to digest and which already boasts some of the best infrastructure in the region, the focus is using those assets to prepare for the post-oil economy.

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the emirate’s $1 trillion wealth fund continues to invest predominantly outside the country. At the same time, the city has drawn some of the world’s biggest hedge funds.

That’s prompted officials to start expanding the financial hub’s jurisdiction to a neighboring island, in a move that will give it 10 times as much space. Months after billionaire Alan Howard said Abu Dhabi could become a global financial center, Bloomberg News reported the hedge fund he set up manages more money from the emirate than anywhere else.

Get the Mideast Money newsletter, a weekly look at the intersection of wealth and power in the region.

But here too, there’s a balancing act.

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, the face of Abu Dhabi’s push to draw hedge fund luminaries, was in Riyadh for FII. He was spotted in traditional Arab garb ahead of the event and later, on a panel, explained the reasons behind his ties to the region.

The billionaire was effusive in his praise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I think his Royal Highness is a great leader,” he said. “He’s almost like a Deng Xiaoping of China, in a sense, or a Lee Kuan Yew (of Singapore).”

–With assistance from Silla Brush, Mark Bergen, Laura Gardner Cuesta, Ben Scent and Siddharth Philip.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.