Almost everything that enters Abu Dhabi by sea passes through a company most residents could not name. AD Ports Group runs the emirate’s ports, its industrial zones and a growing list of overseas concessions — and its most recent results show both the scale of that and how exposed it is.
What the group is
AD Ports Group PJSC, formerly Abu Dhabi Ports, is owned by ADQ and listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange under the ticker ADPORTS. The listing completed on 7 February 2022, with trading from 8 February, following an AED 4 billion primary issuance; ADQ held 75.44% after listing.
It operates through five integrated clusters:
| Cluster | Operating brands |
|---|---|
| Ports | Abu Dhabi Ports and Noatum Ports |
| Economic Cities and Free Zones | KEZAD Group, Sdeira Group |
| Maritime and Shipping | Noatum Maritime |
| Logistics | Noatum Logistics |
| Digital | Maqta Technologies |
Between them they run more than 30 ports and terminals in the UAE and overseas. Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi is Managing Director and Group CEO.
Khalifa Port
The flagship asset sits between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and was inaugurated on 12 December 2012. It has 36 berths, 10,795 metres of quay wall, 33 ship-to-shore cranes and a depth of 18.5 metres, connecting to more than 70 destination ports and serving over 25 major shipping lines.
Unusually, it hosts four separate terminals rather than one operator:
Abu Dhabi Terminals, established 2012, was the region’s first semi-automated container terminal — 5.3 million TEU capacity, six berths, 22 ship-to-shore and 106 automated stacking cranes. In May 2018 it entered a 30-year partnership with MSC to establish a hub at the port.
CSP Abu Dhabi Terminal, operated by COSCO Shipping Ports under a 35-year agreement, was inaugurated on 10 December 2018 with 2.5 million TEU design capacity across 1,200 metres of quay. It was COSCO’s first international greenfield subsidiary.
CMA Terminals Khalifa Port was inaugurated on 12 December 2024, owned 70% by CMA Terminals and 30% by AD Ports — an ownership split worth noticing, since the group took the minority position in its own port. Phase 1 cost AED 3.1 billion and added 1.8 million TEU on 800 metres of quay. In November 2025 an expansion was signed lifting that terminal’s capacity by 50% to 2.7 million TEU and extending the quay to 1,200 metres, for AED 420 million, completing in early 2028.
Khalifa Port’s total capacity is approaching 10 million TEU today, rising to 10.5 million when that expansion completes. The fourth terminal, Autoterminal Khalifa Port, handles vehicles.
The other ports, and KEZAD
Zayed Port, founded in 1968 in downtown Abu Dhabi, covers 5.3 square kilometres with 21 berths and 3,450 metres of quay. It is the group’s bulk, general cargo and cruise gateway; the Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal there spans 7,800 square metres and can handle three mega vessels simultaneously. Musaffah Port, on the 53-kilometre Musaffah Channel, serves steel, dredging, shipbuilding and offshore construction.
KEZAD Group is the industrial land business, established in 2010 and operational since 2012, running 12 economic zones across Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra over 550 square kilometres. In 2025 it had 73.6 square kilometres of leased land and 91% warehouse occupancy, with cluster revenue of AED 2.87 billion, up 45% year on year. Alongside Jebel Ali, it is one of the two poles of UAE industrial logistics.
Going overseas
The most significant international move is Pakistan: a 50-year concession signed on 22 June 2023 with Karachi Port Trust for berths 6 to 9 on the East Wharf, through Karachi Gateway Terminal Limited, with USD 220 million of capital expenditure over ten years taking capacity from 750,000 to one million TEU. A second concession followed in 2024 for berths 11 to 17.
Beyond that the group holds concessions and interests in Congo, Egypt, Angola, Tanzania, Georgia and Jordan — the pattern being Red Sea, East African and South Asian trade routes rather than European or American ones. Our report on Gulf sovereign funds and the CLI acquisition in Brazil covers the most recent extension of that strategy.
The numbers — and the warning inside them
For the year to 31 December 2025, AD Ports reported revenue of AED 20.8 billion, EBITDA of AED 5.1 billion and net profit of AED 2.1 billion, handling 7.7 million TEU and nearly 60 million tonnes of general cargo. It turned free cash flow positive for the year — a first since the 2022 listing.
Momentum continued into 2026. First-quarter revenue was AED 5.75 billion with net profit of AED 653 million. Second-quarter revenue, reported on 14 August 2026, was AED 7.08 billion with net profit of AED 836 million, up 88% year on year.
But the headline hides the story. In the same quarter, UAE container throughput fell 65% year on year to 573,000 TEU, with feeder volumes down 11%. Management attributed this to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and described it as the most significant challenge in the group’s twenty-year history.
That is the honest picture: a group whose profits are rising because of its overseas and non-container businesses, while its home container volumes take the hardest hit in its history. For investors, the exposure is a geographic one as much as an operational one — a point worth holding alongside our guides to investing on ADX and DFM and to the ADQ structure that owns it.
Primary sources: AD Ports Group — About Us, the FY2025 results release, Khalifa Port specifications and the CMA CGM terminal expansion.
