RIYADH: Aldar Properties, Abu Dhabi"s biggest developer, has built up 6.8 billion dirhams ($1.85 billion) in capital, and is considering investments in large real estate portfolios to grow its management business, Bloomberg reported. Aldar has the resources to make purchases both in its home market and around the UAE, according to chief financial officer Greg Fewer. It is mostly interested in acquisition opportunities in retail, commercial, residential and education sectors, within Abu Dhabi and the UAE, he said. Some 5 billion dirhams have been allocated for “immediate deployment,” of which 20 percent may go toward its acquisition of Egypt"s developer Sodic, Aldar CEO Talal Al Dhiyebi said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. Aldar is growing its domestic management business after acquiring Asteco Property Management last year. “We’ve got a rich pipeline of opportunities across all the areas that we’re focused on -- UAE real estate, Egyptian opportunities as well as Saudi opportunities,” Fewer said on a conference call Wednesday. The company is targeting real estate portfolios that are for the most part either owned by large families or zoned near government entities, he said. Aldar is vying for the status of the most valuable listed developer in the country with Dubai’s Emaar Properties. Both are currently worth about $9.2 billion but Emaar is close to overtaking Aldar"s market capitalization, Bloomberg said. Aldar is looking at spending more than 100 million dirhams across its existing assets on immediate energy improvements, with plans also to invest on making new projects more efficient, Al Dhiyebi said.