The shortlisted firms are the local/UK Al-Futtaim Carillion, the local/Lebanese Arabian Construction Company (ACC), and South Korea’s Samsung Corporation.

The other bidders were a joint venture of South Africa’s Murray & Roberts Contractors (Middle East) and the local Al-Habtoor Engineering Enterprises; and the local/UK Aldar Laing O’Rourke.

The winning bidder will build twin towers of between 25 and 30 floors overlooking the former military base at Nahyan.

The investment council will use one of the towers as its headquarters. The other tower will house the head office for Al-Hilal Bank. The London office of Aedas is the architect. UK-based Mace International is project manager.

The project is one of three major corporate headquarters complexes tendered in Abu Dhabi this year. The others are for Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) and International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic).

Masdar extended the closing date for commercial bids to build its new headquarters at Masdar City until 6 September.

The original deadline of 23 August was set in July when contractors submitted technical bids.

In May, Ipic awarded the local Commodore Contracting Company an estimated AED900m ($245m) contract to build its headquarters building. The project is for a 35-floor building with offices for Ipic and space available to lease.