Had to get this one out there……….

While American and European companies have been shelving acquisitions after jitters in the credit market dried up potential financing, oil-producing countries in the Middle East showed Thursday that they do not share the same limitations.

In a series of multibillion-dollar deals, Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi reached out to acquire significant stakes in three stock markets and a U.S. private equity firm, illustrating their increasing appetite for investing the growing wealth from record oil prices in high-quality assets abroad.

But one of the deals could run into political resistance in the United States - as happened last year when DP World of Dubai was pressured to sell the U.S. port operations it had acquired as part of a larger deal.

On Thursday, Dubai - the fastest-growing financial center in the Gulf - agreed to take a stake in the Nasdaq Stock Market, which is based in New York. It would become the first government-controlled stock exchange to hold a significant stake in an American rival, prompting calls in Washington for a national security review of the Nasdaq deal.

More at the International Herald Tribune

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