Saudi Arabia’s New Murabba has appointed Sabah Barakat as acting chief executive, marking another leadership change at one of the kingdom’s headline real estate developments as Riyadh recalibrates parts of its ambitious economic transformation programme.
Barakat, a senior executive at the Public Investment Fund (PIF), takes over the acting CEO role from Michael Dyke, the British executive who had led New Murabba since 2024. He was identified in the position on the company’s website and in a recent statement concerning an investment partnership.
Barakat is also serving as acting group chief executive of ROSHN Group, another major developer backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
It remains unclear whether Dyke will continue in another capacity at New Murabba.
The leadership change comes as scrutiny grows around the scale and pace of Saudi Arabia’s vast development programme. New Murabba is being built around a giant cube-shaped skyscraper that is planned to become the centrepiece of a new urban district in Riyadh.
The project has encountered challenges in recent months, with the latest management move adding to signs that some of the kingdom’s most ambitious investments are being reassessed.
Saudi Arabia has committed enormous sums to Vision 2030, the economic transformation strategy driven by the PIF and aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on oil. The programme includes major bets on tourism, technology, entertainment and property development.
But weaker oil revenues and pressure from the enormous cost of the investment programme have forced Riyadh to take a more selective approach. Several projects have been delayed, reduced in scope or removed from the PIF’s plans for 2026-2030.
New Murabba is among the developments being reshaped. Property consultancy Knight Frank has previously estimated the district could require around $50 billion in investment.
The original vision targeted completion by 2030. The expected completion date has since moved to 2040, underscoring the scale of the project’s reset as Saudi Arabia weighs its development ambitions against financial and economic realities.
