Abu Dhabi investor injects $1bn into Deem Global

The Abu Dhabi Investment Council invested about $1 billion in London-based macro hedge fund Deem Global before the firm closed to new investors earlier this year, sources familiar with the matter confirmed. The allocation came before the manager temporarily shut subscriptions after rapid asset growth.

Deem Global is a discretionary macro manager founded by Asfandyar Nadeem, a former portfolio manager at Brevan Howard. Since formally launching in 2022, the firm’s assets under management grew from roughly $300 million to about $3.8 billion, driven by performance and institutional inflows. Deem declined to comment on the ADIC allocation.

The firm operates from London and uses multi-year investor lock-ups. Most capital is committed for an initial two-year period, after which investors may redeem up to 25% of their holdings each quarter. Deem closed to new investors earlier this year and is expected to reopen for subscriptions in early 2027.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is an independently managed investment arm of Mubadala Investment Company. ADIC has been assessing plans to build a hedge fund portfolio that could reach as much as $15 billion and recently participated in a $2 billion capital raise for another macro manager. ADIC referred to earlier statements saying it favours hedge fund strategies that aim for diversification, downside protection and attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Discretionary macro strategies were among the stronger fundraising categories in 2025. Recent surveys show many institutional allocators intend to increase exposure to the strategy in 2026.

Nadeem left Brevan Howard in 2019 and initially managed capital for a private group of investors before launching Deem Global in 2022.

The $1 billion allocation is one of several large sovereign and institutional commitments to hedge funds in the past two years.