Stake, the MENA region’s leading digital real estate investment platform, has entered into a strategic partnership with ACE & Company, a Swiss-headquartered global investment group managing over $2.0billion in assets. Together, the firms are developing liquidity solutions and a secondary transfer facility for investors utilizing Stake’s products.
Initially, the agreement will focus exclusively on Stake’s real estate portfolio within the UAE. These assets are currently held through Prescribed Companies, which operate as Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) within the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
Building a more liquid marketplace
By combining Stake’s innovative access model with ACE & Company’s two decades of experience in private market investing and secondary transactions, the partnership seeks to create a more liquid, transparent, and efficient marketplace.
Through the planned secondary infrastructure framework, investors are expected to benefit from:
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Greater flexibility in managing their fractional real estate holdings.
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Improved visibility and transparency around market pricing.
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Clearer and more reliable pathways to liquidity.
The broader market also stands to benefit from this institutionalized framework, gaining enhanced stability, stronger price discovery, and a scalable source of long-term capital.
The new secondary framework operates entirely within Stake’s existing regulatory permissions, which are approved by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). The DIFC’s established private markets framework, specifically its Prescribed Company regulations, provided the necessary legal infrastructure to enable this innovative model.
Confidence in UAE fundamentals
The joint venture reflects both firms’ deep confidence in the long-term fundamentals of the UAE. Even amid heightened regional uncertainty, the UAE continues to attract sustained global investor interest through its economic resilience, political stability, and high-quality infrastructure.
Manar Mahmassani, co-founder and Co-CEO of Stake, emphasized the strategic importance of building mature market infrastructure during this period.
“The UAE has always rewarded those who invest in it with conviction, and that’s exactly what this partnership represents,” Mahmassani said. He noted that while Stake launched during the COVID-19 crisis when Dubai’s property industry was at a low point, the underlying market fundamentals remained sound.
“Today, the world is watching the region, and we want to be unambiguous about where we stand: we are long Dubai, and we are long the UAE,” he added. “This is not the moment to retreat: it’s the moment to build the institutional infrastructure this market deserves.”
Sherif El Halwagy, partner and co-Founder at ACE & Company, echoed this sentiment.
“Drawing on almost two decades of experience in offering liquidity to investors across private markets ecosystems via secondaries, we see a tremendous opportunity in real estate secondaries in the UAE,” El Halwagy stated. “This partnership reflects our conviction in the country’s long-term fundamentals and our disciplined approach to capital deployment in high-quality assets.”
As fractional ownership continues to gain mainstream traction globally, both Stake and ACE & Company believe that robust secondary infrastructure will play a critical role in supporting the sector’s sustainable expansion in the UAE and beyond.