Qatar launches Doha Investment to run QIA's 40-plus domestic companies

Of the six national champions Qatar named on Sunday as it folded the Qatar Investment Authority's home portfolio into Doha Investment, two sit in the only US-listed Qatar equity fund. Qatar National Bank is 22.7% of the iShares MSCI Qatar ETF DQAT. Ooredoo, the telecom group, is 4.6%. Qatar Airways, Qatari Diar, Katara Hospitality and Hassad Food are not. The state is reorganizing the part of its economy a US holder cannot buy.

Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, announced the platform at a special edition of the Qatar Economic Forum in New York. It is built to grow non-hydrocarbon companies and to pull more private capital into the economy.

"Through this platform, we aim to expand the role of the private sector in driving Qatar's economic growth," he said. "It will support our strongest companies, help emerging businesses grow, deepen capital markets and attract international capital and expertise to contribute to this effort."

What Doha Investment will run

Sheikh Faisal bin Thani Al Thani, Qatar's minister of commerce and industry, is managing director and vice chairman. The launch did not name a chief executive. He called the step a consolidation rather than a new creation, and said it had been under consideration for more than a decade.

At launch the book comprises more than 40 companies that reach more than 80 markets, spanning financial services, transport and logistics, telecommunications and technology, real estate, hospitality, and food and agriculture; Reuters, citing Sheikh Faisal, put the initial count at 45 state-owned enterprises representing roughly one-third of QIA's assets. More than 20 of those companies recorded revenue above QAR 1 billion in 2025.

"Strong economies are built company by company," Sheikh Faisal said. "Doha Investment will be an active, long-term partner to the businesses in its portfolio, working alongside management teams to unlock new sources of value and support their growth and competitiveness in the region and internationally."

The mandate, as Reuters reported Sheikh Faisal describing it, includes supporting privatization and widening private-sector participation. The official statement said the platform will help deepen Qatar's capital markets and attract international investors. It did not name a company to list, a date for a Qatar Stock Exchange offering, or a first privatization target.

QIA did not disclose assets under management. Reuters cited an estimate from Global SWF of $580 billion. QIA was set up in 2005 with a charter centered on investing abroad. Sunday's statement organizes the home portfolio and does not address the overseas book.

The US-listed book is a bank fund

DQAT last closed Friday, September 18, at $16.95, down 0.34%, just above its $16.90 52-week low. It is a $58.6 million product that tracks the MSCI All Qatar Capped Index, graded D by etf.net in the EM single-country category. It holds 33 stocks, charges 0.60%, and had 56% of assets in financials as of Friday. The top 10 names are 72% of the fund. Over the year through Friday it has returned -10.6%.

QNB and Ooredoo together are 27.3% of DQAT. The fund's other large weights are Qatar Islamic Bank, an industrial conglomerate, and Nakilat, the LNG shipper; none of those three was named at the launch. In the US-listed emerging-markets funds that disclose a Qatar National Bank line, the weight is a fraction of a percent. Broad emerging-markets exposure does not pick this event up.

The Qatar Stock Exchange index closed Sunday at 9,550.44, down 1.12%, or 108.57 points, hours before the New York announcement. DQAT last traded Friday; US markets are closed Sunday.

QatarEnergy's 'very minute' LNG volume

At the same New York forum, QatarEnergy chief executive Saad al-Kaabi said the crisis over the Strait of Hormuz could delay some expansion projects because critical equipment cannot reach Qatar, and that the company is producing only a "very minute" volume of liquefied natural gas. A few North Field East trains are due in 2027; North Field South is set for 2028. The three-to-five-year lag on Qatari trains is set out in Shell says Hormuz reopening will not restore pre-war LNG as Qatari trains need three to five years.