Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company is usually described in one line: the government-owned operator of
the emirate’s convention centre, which also happens to own ExCeL London.
Two-thirds of that is now wrong. It is not owned by the entity most people name, and it does not describe
itself as an exhibitions company at all.
Correction one: ADNEC Group is a Modon company
Every press release on the group’s own site now opens with the same formula: “ADNEC Group, a Modon
company”.
The change came through a restructuring in which ADQ Real Estate and Hospitality and IHC Capital Holding
combined their shareholdings into Q Holding, which acquired ADNEC along with Modon Properties and other real
estate assets, and then rebranded as Modon Holding. ADNEC Group is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Modon
Holding.
The precise, fully sourced way to state it: ADNEC Group is a Modon company, and ADQ’s holding now
sits at the Modon Holding level rather than directly over ADNEC. We are not printing the percentage
split between the shareholders in the merged listed entity — those figures come from secondary reporting we
could not confirm against a primary disclosure, and this is exactly the kind of number that should not be
repeated on trust. Our profile of
ADQ under the L’IMAD
reorganisation covers the sovereign layer above all of it.
Correction two: Capital Gate is not an ADNEC venue
The leaning tower next to the convention centre appears in most descriptions of ADNEC’s portfolio. It
does not appear anywhere on ADNEC Group’s own Group or Team pages.
ADNEC lists its venues as ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi, ADNEC Centre Al Ain, ExCeL London and
the Business Design Centre in London. Capital Gate is a hotel-and-office tower in Capital
Centre — a neighbouring building, not an exhibition venue and not on the group’s own company list.
That list, from the site footer, is: ADNEC Group, ExCeL London, Capital Events, ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi,
ADNEC Centre Al Ain, Tourism365, Capital Catering, Capital 360, Capital Protocol and twofour54.
Correction three: it calls itself a conglomerate, not an exhibitions business
In its own words: “ADNEC Group comprises of seven clusters — Venues, Events, F&B, Hotels,
Services, Tourism and Media — with each industry significantly contributing to the economy of Abu
Dhabi and the UAE.” Founded in 2005, it describes itself as “one of the most diversified conglomerates in the
UAE”.
Note that Hotels is one of the seven clusters even though no hotel appears in the group company
list, and that the group’s stated mission includes “maximising the financial returns of our hotels” and “we
invest to optimise asset returns”.
Read plainly, ADNEC is an asset-returns business that happens to run exhibition halls. That framing
explains the Modon transaction better than the exhibitions framing does — a venue portfolio is real estate
with an operating business attached, and it has been moved into a real-estate holding company accordingly.
The venues
| Venue | Detail |
|---|---|
| ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi | 153,678 m² total space; 13 exhibition halls; conference space for up to 6,000; a banqueting facility; “The Hive” meeting space; outdoor space including a grandstand and a marina |
| ADNEC Centre Al Ain | Architecture “in harmony with the city’s heritage”; exhibitions, conferences, weddings and special events |
| ExCeL London | Acquired by ADNEC in 2008; 100,000 m²; contains ICC London |
| Business Design Centre, London | Acquired by ExCeL London itself, and now in ADNEC’s venue portfolio |
The ExCeL story carries a detail that is almost never reported. ADNEC did not simply buy a London venue in
2008 and hold it — ExCeL London subsequently made its own acquisition, the Business Design
Centre, which then entered ADNEC’s portfolio. And the reporting line runs both ways: ADNEC Group’s own Group
CEO, Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, is Chairman of ExCeL London, while ExCeL retains its own chief
executive, Jeremy Rees.
An Abu Dhabi state-linked group owning the venue that hosts a large share of Britain’s trade calendar is a
more consequential fact than its coverage suggests.
Correction four: twofour54 sits here
Abu Dhabi’s media zone is frequently described as part of Abu Dhabi Media, or as a standalone media
authority. It is neither. ADNEC’s own site states that “twofour54, an ADNEC Group company, is a creator of
bespoke destinations designed to house and serve creative communities”, and twofour54’s chief executive Mark
Whitehead sits on ADNEC Group’s executive management page.
Its regulator is separately the Creative Media Authority — a distinction worth keeping straight, because
the owner and the regulator are different bodies.
Who runs it
Group CEO Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri also chairs ExCeL London and sits on the board of Abu
Dhabi Airports Company. His stated ambition for the group is “to become the most successful exhibition,
conference and events centre in the region”.
The executive team includes Saeed Al Shamsi as Chief Human Capital and Communications Officer, Manal Al
Ali as acting Chief Financial Officer, Simon Price as Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Ahmad Shaker
leading Capital 360 and Events, Muzafar El Ariss at Capital Catering, Ahmed Al Obaidli as Chief Operations
Officer and Khalifa Al Qubaisi as Chief Commercial Officer, alongside the ExCeL and twofour54 chief
executives.
What it is for
ADNEC states its mandate as delivering “premier services to every stakeholder while supporting Abu Dhabi’s
long-term policies and goals of economic growth and diversification”, explicitly supporting Abu Dhabi
Economic Vision 2030 and Plan Abu Dhabi 2030. Its vision is “a leading international group that aims for
sustainable tourism growth”.
The group is a member of the international industry bodies UFI, ICCA, AIPC and AEV — worth stating
plainly, because a strip of association logos in a website footer is often misread as an ownership chart.
The business case for a state-linked events group is straightforward: conferences fill hotels, hotels fill
airport seats, and the whole chain runs on a calendar the venue owner controls. Our guides to
Abu Dhabi Finance Week and
GITEX Global cover two of
the region’s largest examples, our guide to
Zayed International
Airport covers the arrival end of that chain, and our explainer on
investing on ADX covers the
exchange where the parent’s shares now sit.
Primary sources: ADNEC Group’s own
Who We Are page,
carrying the seven clusters and the 2005 founding; its
Group page, the
source for the venue list and their figures; its
executive team
page; and its newsroom, where
the “ADNEC Group, a Modon company” descriptor appears on
current
releases; plus Modon. Checked 20
August 2026. This article is general information, not investment advice.
