Gulf private credit opportunities shine amid global volatility

The Gulf’s private credit market remains at a nascent stage of development, relative to global peers, but a confluence of structural forces is accelerating its growth. Governments across the GCC are implementing ambitious economic diversification strategies—including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, UAE 2031, and the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33)—with increased privatization and supporting the expansion of local SMEs being central to much of this growth. With GCC banks typically prioritizing lending to large corporates and government-related entities, SMEs currently account for less than 10% of total bank lending in the GCC, which has led to a substantial credit gap estimated at approximately $250 billion—a gap that global private credit is seeking to close. Partners for Growth is a prime example. Headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in Dubai, the firm specializes in providing custom debt solutions for high-growth companies and was one of the early entrants on the scene when it provided its first funding to a Gulf entity back in 2020. Since then, it has deployed around $450 million in commitments into the Gulf—predominantly across Saudi and the UAE—helping to scale some of the region’s most prominent technology companies, including Saudi fintech unicorn Tabby, TruKKer, Bayzat, Syarah, Huspy, and Silkhaus. PFG provided $10 million funding to Tabby after their seed round and played a key role in its subsequent meteoric growth—it continues to be a lender to it today. “Our focus is on lending to emerging tech and innovation companies,” Armineh Baghoomian, managing director of Partners for Growth, told Fortune. “Many companies we lend to have been around for maybe a year or two. Most banks are still trying to get their heads around lending against very few years of financial history and little to no profitability. So that opens up a whole window of opportunity—that’s predominantly what we look at.” The firm’s specialty is providing highly structured facilities t