Strategic joint venture aims to enhance liquidity, transparency, and investor confidence in Stake’s real estate offerings in the UAE
Stake, the MENA region’s leading digital real estate investment platform, and ACE & Company, a Swiss-headquartered global investment group focused on private markets, with more than $2.0 billion in assets under management, today announced a strategic partnership to support the development of liquidity solutions for investors in Stake products. The agreement will focus initially on the platform’s real estate portfolio in the UAE, held through Prescribed Companies, the equivalent of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in DIFC.
The initiative is intended to create a more liquid, transparent, and efficient marketplace for investors seeking exposure to fractional real estate opportunities through Stake’s platform. By combining Stake’s innovative access model with ACE & Company’s longstanding experience in private market investing and secondary transactions, the partnership aims to strengthen the investment ecosystem around fractional ownership structures in the UAE.
The joint venture reflects both firms’ confidence in the long-term fundamentals of the UAE. At a time of heightened regional uncertainty, the UAE continues to distinguish itself through economic resilience, political stability, high-quality infrastructure, and sustained global investor interest. These attributes have helped position the country as one of the region’s most compelling destinations for long-term real estate capital.
Through the planned secondary infrastructure framework, investors in Stake products are expected to benefit from greater flexibility in managing their holdings, improved visibility around market pricing, and clearer pathways to liquidity. In turn, the broader market stands to benefit from enhanced stability, stronger price discovery, and increased participation and confidence in fractional real estate as an investable asset class. The framework operates within Stake’s existing DFSA-approved regulatory permissions, providing investors with established oversight and regulatory clarity. Stake is regulated by the DFSA, the independent regulator for business conducted from or within DIFC.
For Stake, the partnership marks an important step in the continued evolution of its platform, extending beyond access to ownership and toward the development of more mature market infrastructure. For ACE & Company, the collaboration draws on its extensive experience in private equity and secondaries to help unlock liquidity solutions in a fast-growing segment of the alternative investment landscape. The DIFC’s established private markets framework, and its Prescribed Company regulations in particular, have been central to enabling this model, providing the institutional and legal infrastructure on which this secondary transfer facility innovation is built.
Manar Mahmassani, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Stake said:
“The UAE has always rewarded those who invest in it with conviction, and that’s exactly what this partnership represents. Stake was born in crisis. We launched during COVID, when global real estate markets were struggling and Dubai’s property industry was at its low point. What we saw was a market that is far from broken, but fundamentally sound, going through a temporary challenge. That conviction has never left us. 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. This is not the moment to retreat: it’s the moment to build the institutional infrastructure this market deserves. That’s exactly what this partnership is all about – a mature, resilient market attracting institutional confidence and capital committed for the long run.”
Sherif El Halwagy, Partner and Co-Founder at ACE & Company said:
“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. This partnership reflects our conviction in the country’s long-term fundamentals and our disciplined approach to capital deployment in high-quality assets. We look forward to further strengthening our relationships with investors and partners across the region.”
The partnership is designed to benefit all stakeholders across the ecosystem. Existing investors gain added optionality and transparency, prospective investors gain greater confidence in the structure, and the market benefits from stronger liquidity mechanisms, a scalable source of permanent/long-term capital and a more institutionalized framework for participation.
As fractional ownership continues to gain traction globally, Stake and ACE & Company believe that robust secondary infrastructure will play a critical role in supporting the sector’s long-term growth. The joint venture represents a shared commitment not only to product innovation, but also to building the underlying market architecture needed to support sustainable expansion in the UAE and beyond.
