Good morning, ladies and gents. The holy month is a few days away, and we’re loading up on our morning coffee like crazy to get ready (we know it doesn’t work like that, but still).

In today’s issue: Safanad sold home care operator HC-One — the largest in the UK — for USD 1.6 bn, a snapshot of GCC’s sovereign wealth investments in 2025, and Bahri’s bumper earnings in 2025.

BUT FIRST- The Public Investment Fund’s two-day Private Sector Forum wraps up today at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center, and the fund is testing elements of its revised strategy by sounding out investors in its gigaproject pipeline on the sidelines, AGBI reports, citing sources it says are in the know.

The fund is still testing its draft strategy at the moment and gauging investor interest, with a final version due this spring, the sources said. New directives reportedly dictate that projects that do not meet strict internal rate of return thresholds or serve a designated trophy event will be deprioritized, with AGBI’s sources saying the fund plans to cut capex by some 15%.

The big fish: Attracting capital from major global asset managers will be a big focus under the new roadmap, unnamed sources told Reuters.

REMEMBER- PIF is set to refine its 2026-2030 investment strategy by concentrating capital on a tighter group of portfolio companies and scaling them into global champions across sectors such as manufacturing, AI, and aviation. Governor Yasir Al Rumayyan has already signaled that Neom is no longer the fund’s singular focal point, with the next phase organized around six priority sectors, including tourism and advanced manufacturing.

IN CONTEXT- Higher fiscal pressures — including lower oil prices, rising borrowing, and a widening deficit — are pushing the government to cut back on capital spending and prioritize time-sensitive projects and high-return sectors.

Happening today

The World Defense Show continues today and runs through Thursday, 12 February in Riyadh, bringing together defense officials, military leaders, and industry executives from across the globe.

WEATHER- Dust-laden winds will keep skies hazy over Al Jouf and the Northern Borders, while fog drapes parts of the Eastern Province and the highlands of Jazan, Aseer, Al Baha, and Makkah.

  • Riyadh: 29°C high / 17°C low;
  • Jeddah: 31°C high / 21°C low;
  • Makkah: 33°C high / 21°C low;
  • Dammam: 27°C high / 16°C low.

PSA

Tadawul is taking a few short breathers to celebrate the upcoming holidays. Here’s when you can (and can’t) trade:

  • Founding Day: The Exchange is taking Sunday, 22 February off. Trading resumes on Monday, 23 February.
  • For Ramadan, it’s business as usual. The trading schedule remains as is, opening at 9:30am and wrapping up the post-trade session by 4:00pm.
  • Eid Al Fitr: Tadawul will close shop at the end of Monday, 16 March and won’t be back until Tuesday, 24 March.

Watch this space

IPO — Saleh Abdulaziz Al Rashed & Sons priced its IPO at SAR 45 per share, giving it a market cap of around SAR 837 mn at listing, according to a news release (pdf). The construction materials and mining group is set to raise up to SAR 251 mn from the Tadawul main market offering — the first real test of 2026 after what has been a bruising year for Saudi equities.

Demand was strong: The orderbook came just shy of SAR 17 bn, leaving the offering roughly 67x oversubscribed.

What’s next? Retail subscription will run between 12-17 February for up to 30% of the 5.6 mn shares on offer. Final allocations are expected on 24 February.

SPEAKING OF RETAIL — Is 30% a bit much? Banks are reportedly urging the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to rethink guidance that nudges issuers to allocate a bigger chunk of IPOs to retail investors and mutual funds, Bloomberg reports, citing people it says are in the know.

Why? The push — which can see as much as 30% of shares steered to individuals, up from roughly 10-20% — could backfire if retail investors added downward price pressure to an already cooling market. Retail investors traditionally flip shares for quick returns.

The friction point: While the CMA wants to broaden local participation, banks argue that squeezing out foreign institutions to favor retail buyers is hurting the Kingdom’s goal of deepening international capital flows, according to Bloomberg. Domestic mutual funds have also shown limited appetite for recent listings, leaving issuers caught between regulatory nudges and a lack of actual demand.

IN CONTEXT IPO momentum hit a wall last year, with listing volumes flat at USD 4.2 bn and only two of the 10 largest IPOs trading above offer. Names like EFSIM Facilities Management even scrapped IPO plans amid weak demand. Meanwhile, retail trading value slid to about USD 9 bn in December — the lowest since at least 2020 — as the TASI posted its worst year in a decade last year and continues to lag EM peers despite a recent rebound.

PRIVATIZATION — On the hunt for a private player to take on the Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz Airport project: Matarat Holding and the National Center for Privatization & PPP (NCP) is calling for expressions of interest for the Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz New International Airport Project.

A tall order: The project’s scope will involve building a new passenger terminal, developing a runway, taxiways, and aprons. The chosen applicant will handle the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the facility.

Interested? The project will be implemented under a build-transfer-operate (BTO) contract with a concession period of 30 years. Interested parties have until Monday, 23 February to submit their expression of interest.

REMEMBER-Matarat Holding and NCP have been on a privatization push, most recently announcing that several leading global consortia are in the running for the new Taif International Airport development project. We are also eagerly waiting to hear who they settle on for the Abha International Airport upgrade project, which will be awarded within weeks.

DEFENSE — Made-in-Saudi Gulf jet parts: Eurofighter Typhoon jets and other aircraft in the Gulf will soon use Saudi-manufactured military components, Vice President of Industrialization at BAE Systems Saudi Arabia Azzam Alhakbani told Asharq Business (watch, runtime: 1:49) on the sidelines of the World Defense Show. BAE has already begun exporting Saudi Typhoon parts, now in use by fleets including the UK Royal Air Force.

The long play: The Kingdom is building the industrial track record needed to secure its long-desired seat at the table for the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). Japan has previously expressed reservations about Saudi Arabia’s technical contribution to the program’s sixth-gen fighter. Demonstrating that it can sustain the Typhoon could be Riyadh’s answer to these concerns.

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The big story abroad

No single story is capturing the attention of the foreign business pages this morning — among the few worth noting:

Google’s parent company Alphabet started shopping around a 100-year bond, which comes as part of a wider GBP-denominated issuance. We know the demand is there, with the tech giant wrapping up a 5x oversubscribed, USD 20 bn bond sale yesterday. It is also preparing a separate CHF offering, all in a bid to finance its AI ambitions.

Speaking of Big Tech, they might catch a break on tariffs, as US President Donald Trump plansto exempt companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft from an upcoming streak of levies on chips. The move would spare imports from Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC, whose major clients include AI hyperscalers — a sector that Trump wants to protect while simultaneously remaining tough on imports.

The specter of AI haunts private credit: Private credit lenders remain rattled by potential disruption in the software sector — a favorite debtor among players — by advancements in AI. In light of Anthropic’s rollout of AI tools that automate tasks conventionally done via software products, shares of asset managers with large private credit activity saw a sharp drop.

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