Emirates NBD Asset Management and BlackRock have launched two income-focused public funds to mark the first anniversary of their strategic partnership, broadening a collaboration that began in 2025 with access to private market alternatives and has since accumulated $350 million in assets under management.
The two new products are the FundStar Emirates CLO AA Fund, sub-managed by BlackRock, and the Emirates Systematic Income and Growth Fund, for which BlackRock serves as investment adviser while Emirates NBD Asset Management retains portfolio management responsibility. Both are now available to the bank’s retail and wealth clients across the region.
The funds in detail
The CLO fund invests in a portfolio of senior secured corporate loans across the US and Europe, targeting an average credit rating of AA with no sub-investment-grade exposure. It offers daily liquidity and carries no leverage, positioning it as a relatively conservative floating-rate income vehicle. BlackRock’s CLO franchise spans more than 24 years and manages over $40 billion globally in the strategy, which lends the product credible institutional provenance.
The Systematic Income and Growth Fund takes a benchmark-unconstrained approach, allocating across globally diversified income-producing assets using BlackRock’s systematic investment models. It targets a net distribution rate of 7% per annum, paid quarterly. That headline yield will attract scrutiny from wealth advisers assessing whether the return compensates adequately for the underlying complexity and variability of a multi-asset systematic strategy.
Michail Samawi, senior executive officer at Emirates NBD Asset Management, described the launch as fulfilling a commitment to “democratise premium global investments” for Middle East wealth clients. Keith Saldanha, BlackRock’s head of wealth and global product solutions for the Middle East and Africa, said the partnership demonstrated “significant opportunity for both CLO and systematic strategies within wealth portfolios.”
Market context and regulatory read-across
The move from private-market-only structures aimed at professional clients to public funds accessible to retail investors is a material step. Retail-eligible fund structures in the UAE fall under the oversight of the Securities and Commodities Authority, which has tightened disclosure and suitability requirements for complex products in recent years. The transition signals Emirates NBD Asset Management’s confidence that its distribution infrastructure and compliance framework can support a broader investor base, but it also raises the bar for product documentation and ongoing suitability assessment.
The CLO market itself has attracted renewed institutional interest across the Gulf, as dollar-denominated floating-rate products offer a natural hedge against rate uncertainty that regional investors with dollar-pegged liabilities value. Several global asset managers, including but not limited to BlackRock, have sought to package CLO exposure into fund wrappers accessible below institutional minimums, responding to strong private banking demand in Dubai and Riyadh.
The partnership model here, where a regional bank provides distribution and local regulatory relationships while a global manager provides investment capability, is becoming a standard template across the Gulf Cooperation Council. Similar structures have emerged between regional banks and global alternatives managers in Saudi Arabia under the Capital Market Authority‘s push to deepen local capital markets. The competitive question for Emirates NBD Asset Management is how quickly it can grow AUM in the new public funds relative to the $350 million gathered in the first year, and whether the 7% distribution target on the systematic fund holds across a full market cycle.
AI level 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, structure or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean
