Citi evacuates Dubai offices
Citigroup briefly evacuated its Dubai offices amid Iranian threats and signaled a temporary halt in dealmaking in the region, highlighting operational risk for global banks with Middle East exposure reported. Management expects a rebound later in the year, but the pause raises near-term execution and valuation uncertainty for cross-border M&A mandates out of the Gulf.
Citigroup instructed staff to leave its Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Oud Metha offices on March 11, 2026, and told employees to work remotely until further notice [finance.yahoo.com]. Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered also told staff to avoid Dubai offices, while HSBC temporarily closed branches in Qatar and several consultancies (Deloitte, PwC) suspended in‑office activity in Dubai on the same March 11 wave of precautions [bloomberg.com]. Citi’s EMEA technology co‑head Amit Nayyar characterized the disruption as a temporary drag—saying markets are “still absorbing” the economics of the Iran conflict and that deal pipelines should recover later in 2026 in his Bloomberg interview on March 12, 2026 [youtube.com]. Separately, Asian banks have paused Gulf lending drives and scaled back non‑essential travel amid the conflict, a shift Bloomberg reported on March 11 that market participants say is raising near‑term pricing and execution risk for cross‑border, debt‑financed transactions; Citi also closed most UAE branches through March 14 as a precaution, citing operational limits on phone and cheque processing [bloomberg.com].
