The Kingdom’s capital markets saw a rebound in equity offerings in 1Q 2025, despite private debt placements outpacing equity on the corporate funding front, according to the Capital Market Authority’s (CMA) latest quarterly bulletin (pdf). Saudi stock ownership remained heavily concentrated in institutional hands, while retail investors were net buyers for the second straight quarter.

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Nomu listings accounted for the lion’s share of IPO approvals in the first quarter of the year. A total of nine parallel market IPOs were approved in 1Q with 21 more in the pipeline, compared to 5 approvals on the main market, with 16 pending regulatory sign-off.

Equity issuance surged y-o-y: Public equity offerings hit SAR 42.6 bn across 13 transactions in 1Q 2025, nearly tripling the SAR 15.3 bn recorded in 1Q 2024. Debt issuance, meanwhile, remained muted, with just one public debt instrument raising SAR 70 mn over the same period.

Institutional ownership took a minor hit: Institutions held 95.3% of the SAR 9.9 tn total market value in 1Q 2025, down from 96.0% of SAR 10.9 tn in 1Q 2024. Retail investors, meanwhile, increased their share to 4.7%, up from 4.0% a year earlier, marking a notable shift amid rising retail participation.

Retail continued to buy the dip: Retail investors were net buyers once again in 1Q, while institutions accounted for 47.9% of total sell-side trades versus 47.7% on the buy side. Meanwhile, government-related entities (GREs) were net sellers.

Private debt still leads fundraising: Private debt placements raised SAR 13.2 bn across 22 issuances in 1Q 2025, up 7.3% y-o-y from SAR 12.3 bn across 16 issuances in the same quarter last year. Private equity placements, meanwhile, fell by 38.8% in value to SAR 589.3 mn from SAR 963.5 mn in 1Q 2024, with the number of transactions holding steady at six, compared to eight. That 1Q’s debt-to-equity ratio at over 22x, up from around 12.8x a year earlier.

ALSO– Capital market institutions had a good start to the year. Total industry revenues hit SAR 4.8 bn, up from SAR 4.1 bn in the same period last year. Investments remained the top contributor at SAR 1.6 bn, followed by asset management (SAR 1.5 bn), dealing (SAR 633.6 mn) and investment banking (SAR 416.6 mn).

Tadawul’s 1Q performance captures a pre-crisis snapshot, before markets were rattled by escalating geopolitical tensions, including the Israel-Iran conflict and renewed tariff threats from the US. While our capital markets held firm in early 2025, the picture changed swiftly in 2Q when Tadawul ranked as the worst-performing major global exchange in May, as risk-off sentiment, regional instability, and weaker liquidity weighed on investor appetite.

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