Sobha Group did not begin in real estate. In 1976 PNC Menon set up an interior decoration firm in the Sultanate of Oman. The work was fine detailing, and the client list grew to include the royal families of Oman, Bahrain, Brunei and Qatar, along with the president of Tajikistan. Menon entered Indian real estate in 1995 with Sobha Developers in Bangalore. He reached Dubai in 2003 and established Sobha Realty.

Who runs it

A typical developer buys land, commissions a design, appoints a contractor and manages the outcome. Sobha does not hand that chain over.

The company runs conceptualisation, design, construction, glazing, metal works, interiors and furniture through its own facilities. It states that every item used in its construction is manufactured by it, and that every home it builds is subjected to a material quality inspection. Sobha Group has also opened a furniture factory at Dubai Industrial City.

Sobha calls this its proprietary Backward Integration model, and describes it as retaining full control over design, engineering and construction. It is what the company means by The Art of the Detail, and it is why the brand argues about door hinges, tiling and window sizes in its own marketing rather than about square footage. Whether the resulting premium is worth paying is a decision for the buyer. The manufacturing model behind it is unusual in Dubai and it is verifiable.

Sobha Realty is private. It is not on the DFM and it publishes no quarterly accounts, so the usual method of checking a Dubai developer does not apply here. What it does instead is raise money on public debt markets, and that leaves a trail other people created.

• USD 500 million sukuk. Oversubscribed three times, at USD 1.54 billion.
• USD 750 million Green Sukuk. Around USD 2.1 billion in orders and 2.8 times oversubscribed. Sobha describes it as the largest green sukuk ever issued by a real estate developer globally.
• Listings. Both issuances are listed on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Dubai.
• Moody’s. The agency upgraded the Corporate Family Rating of PNC Investments LLC, Sobha Realty’s parent, to Ba2 with a stable outlook, citing enhanced credit metrics supported by a strong revenue profile and a substantial backlog.

Sobha Realty reported FY 2025 sales of AED 30 billion on 22 January 2026, an increase of 30% over 2024. The headline is not the interesting bit.

AED 8 billion of that AED 30 billion came from Umm Al Quwain, out of two masterplans: Downtown UAQ and Sobha Siniya Island. More than a quarter of the company’s year came from an emirate the brand was barely associated with until recently. If you want to know where Sobha Realty is actually going, that number tells you more than the total does.

The same year brought four masterplan launches, among them Sobha Solis, Downtown UAQ and Sobha Central. The company also moved outside the Gulf for the first time, opening regional offices and acquiring land in Texas in the United States and in Queensland and Sydney in Australia.

Sobha One became the first building outside Singapore to receive Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy certification.
Sobha Realty scored 97 in the 2025 GRESB Real Estate Assessment and holds a 4-Star Rating.
At Sobha Hartland, 2.4 million sq. ft. of the 8 million sq. ft. masterplan is reserved for green and open space, which is 30% of the community.

Sobha Hartland

Launched in 2014 in Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum City as a USD 4 billion project, Sobha Hartland covers 8 million sq. ft. of freehold, mixed-use development. It houses Hartland International School and North London Collegiate School Dubai.

Sobha Realty stated in January 2026 that its UAE portfolio ran to 14 developments, 12 in Dubai and two in Umm Al Quwain. In April 2026 it announced Sobha City, its first large-scale residential development in Abu Dhabi. That is a third emirate and a fifteenth development, although Sobha has not published a restated count since.

Across those communities Sobha builds apartments, villas, penthouses and villaments.

Sobha City, Abu Dhabi

Announced on 11 April 2026, Sobha City sits in Al Bahiya along the E10 and E12 corridor, close to Zayed International Airport and Yas Island. Sobha describes it as a low-density, nature-led Madinat designed around space, light and movement, and as a city within a city intended to become a fully integrated, self-sustained ecosystem. It spans approximately 38 million sq. ft., with an initial phase of around 8 million sq. ft. The mix runs to waterfront apartments, estate and garden villas, and mansions.

Useful to know before you compare Sobha against a listed developer, because you are not comparing like with like.

None of that is a warning sign on its own. A private company is not obliged to publish what a listed one must. But it does change what you are able to check, and it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving a buyer to assume the numbers exist somewhere.