Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, better known as Taqa, has agreed to buy Spanish water treatment and water desalination company GS Inima for $1.2 billion to expand its water business.
The transaction is expected to close in 2026 and will “significantly accelerate” the group’s international water growth strategy, the company said on Sunday. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.
Under the deal, GS Engineering & Construction will divest its entire stake in GS Inima, which it owned through its subsidiary Global Water Solutions, to Taqa.
GS Inima, based in Madrid, operates water desalination, wastewater treatment and related infrastructure projects in Brazil, the Middle East, Europe, the US, Mexico and Oman. The deal will provide Taqa with immediate access to these markets, it said.
“The acquisition of GS Inima is aligned with our strategy to focus on growing our water business,” Jasim Thabet, Taqa’s group chief executive and managing director, told The National on Monday. "Once the transaction closes, we would have access to 10 countries with water projects, with over 50 active projects across Latin America, the US, Europe and the Middle East."
GS Inima is a "platform for growth" as it has a full range of expertise in water projects. It handles development, building, operations and asset management throughout projects, he added.
Established in 2005, Abu Dhabi-listed Taqa is a diversified utilities and energy group with investments in power and water generation, transmission and distribution assets, as well as upstream and midstream oil and gas operations.
It has assets in the UAE as well as Canada, Ghana, India, Morocco, Oman, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US. Taqa is also a shareholder in Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), along with Mubadala and Adnoc.
The company has committed to expanding its share of renewables to at least 30 per cent of total generation capacity by 2030.
In 2023, Taqa said it aimed to spend about Dh75 billion ($20.4 billion) until 2030 on capital expenditure, aiming for 150 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity and seawater desalination capacity of 1.3 billion gallons a day by the end of that period, Mr Thabet said.
"Our biggest market is Abu Dhabi, while Uzbekistan and Morocco are on the radar for growth," he added.
Taqa has been looking at overseas deals to expand its international footprint. The company in April agreed to buy the UK’s Transmission Investment, one of the largest operators of assets connecting wind farms at sea to the British electricity grid.
Separately, Taqa and Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, completed the acquisition of a gas-fired power generation plant at the Talimarjan Power Complex in Uzbekistan in May.
Also in May, Taqa signed preliminary agreements in Morocco with government authorities to acquire thermal gas fire plants and develop gas fire plants and renewable projects, as well as to build reverse osmosis desalination plants, with more than Dh50 billion made available for those investments, Mr Thabet said.
A Taqa-led consortium including Vision Invest and the Gulf Investment Corporation won a bid last year to develop a Dh1.5 billion water reservoir project in Saudi Arabia’s Makkah region. The companies will be responsible for building, owning and operating the Juranah Independent Strategic Water Reservoir Project for 30 years before transferring the ownership to the Saudi Water Partnership Company.
Addressing water security
Water security has become a key challenge globally, and in the Middle East and North Africa in particular. The region has the world’s lowest average annual water availability per person, equal to 480 cubic metres in 2023, less than 10 per cent the global average, according to the World Bank.
On the supply side, desalination and re-use of treated wastewater are emerging as critical approaches to boost supply. Mena now accounts for more than 53 per cent of the global desalination capacity, the World Bank said.
Taqa's latest acquisition is a "bold climate investment" because scaling desalination and water reuse is essential to building resilience in a warming world, said Vahid Fotuhi, founder and chief executive of Blue Forest, a global developer of mangrove conservation and reforestation projects.
As energy and water systems grow increasingly connected, this move enables the UAE to expand its capabilities in both, while exporting technical expertise to high-growth international markets, according to Rasso Bartenschlager, general manager of Al Masaood Power, part of Al Masaood Group.
“GS Inima’s operational strength, combined with Taqa’s investment scale, creates a powerful platform for delivering low-carbon water solutions that are financially and environmentally sustainable. It’s a pragmatic and timely step aligned with global utility trends,” he said.
The acquisition is a "major step for global water security", expanding Taqa's capabilities and geographic reach to deliver more resilient freshwater supplies, according to Nidal Hilal, director of NYU Abu Dhabi Water Research Centre. It reinforces the UAE’s role as "a hub for sustainable water innovation" and gives Taqa the scale and diversified assets to respond quickly to growing water stress, he added.
The move will immediately add 171 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) of desalination capacity to Taqa’s 1,250 MIGD portfolio and help advance its goal to source two-thirds of its water desalination capacity from energy-efficient reverse osmosis technology by 2030, the company said.
GS Inima will also contribute an additional 1.2 million cubic metres a day of drinking water capacity and 2.6 million cubic meters a day of wastewater and industrial water treatment capacity to Taqa’s global water platform, as well as a water management business serving 1.3 million inhabitants, it added. "So it aligns very well with our ambition to be a low-carbon water and electricity company," Mr Thabet said.
Domestically, Taqa expanded its presence in wastewater and recycled water through the acquisition of Sustainable Water Solutions Holding, now operating as Taqa Water Solutions. It has a capacity of 1.3 million cubic metres per day focused on wastewater.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
