THIS MORNING: US confirms participation in Expo 2030 Riyadh

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Humain begins its November with Aramco having closed on its acquisition of a 49% stake in the PIF-backed AI company, settling a funding question that has hung over the company since PIF started tightening what it puts into its portfolio holdings. Aramco will also be running Humain’s services across its own operations, which gives the company paying workloads that would otherwise sit with foreign cloud providers, and keeps Saudi industrial data on Saudi compute.

Meanwhile, the non-oil economy is doing better — but it’s not enough to offset what’s happening in the oil economy. The headline contraction of overall GDP is almost entirely because of the oil side of the ledger, which is also the line most likely to recover on its own as the shipping and security picture settles.

WEATHER- Fog, rain, and thunderstorms: Red and orange weather alerts have been issued across several regions with fog reported in parts of the Eastern Province and moderate to heavy rainfall forecast for parts of the Northern Borders, Hail, Makkah, Asir, Al Baha, and Jazan, according to the National Center for Meteorology. Thunderstorms threaten to bring flash floods and hail, while active winds are expected to stir up dust and sand in several areas, including Riyadh and Al Qassim.

PSA

New commercial registration? The 90-day clock is running. The Commerce Ministry is telling business owners that any activity needing a license must secure one within 90 days of being entered in the Commercial Register. Let the window lapse, and the activity’s registration is canceled outright. The same deadline includes activities that don’t require a license. Businesses must show they are actually operating within 90 days, or the registration goes too.

Washington RSVPs Expo 2030

The US has signed on to Expo 2030 Riyadh. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan put Washington’s name to the Expo 2030 participation contract on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta, according to a statement from the US State Department. It’s the first step toward a US Pavilion at the six-month global exhibition, which is expected to draw participants from around the world to Riyadh in October 2030.

Canelo takes the WBC

Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez took the World Boxing Council (WBC) super-middleweight crown at The Venue, outpointing France’s Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision, SPA reported. Part of Riyadh Season, the nine-bout bill split five to the rest of the world and four to Mexico, with Saudi’s Sultan Almohammed beating Mexico’s Erick Villegas on points for a home victory.

It’s one of the few events to push through: Riyadh’s sports calendar has split on the security situation. WWE’s Crown Jewel is still set for the capital this Saturday, and the AFC Asian Cup 2027 is also on track to run from 7 January to 5 February. Others have slipped — the Six Kings Slam tennis is pushed to December, and the Dakar Rally pulled out of the Kingdom altogether. The Joy Awards, Red Sea Film Festival, and Soundstorm (MDLBEAST) have all been pushed or canceled too.

War watch

The Saudi-led coalition said it carried out a “precision military operation” against key assets it says the Houthis use to support their war effort, including ballistic missile and drone capabilities. In a statement posted on X yesterday, coalition spokesperson Turki Al Malki accused the Houthis of deliberately attacking civilians in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and threatening Red Sea shipping, and warned that the group would “bear the consequences of its hostile behavior” if the attacks continue. The statement did not say where the strikes took place or what specifically was hit, but two hours later Al Malki posted a video on X showing what he said was the destruction of Houthi assets in Al Hodeidah and Dhamar.

Houthis report new Saudi strikes across eight provinces: Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said yesterday that Saudi Arabia had carried out 75 airstrikes and missile attacks over the previous 24 hours, targeting what he called civilian assets in Saada, Taiz, Amran, Ibb, Dhamar, Lahj, Al Hodeidah, and Al Jawf. That brings the total number of Saudi strikes to 3,830 since the escalation began, he said.

Growing fears of a wider regional war are raising security concerns across the Gulf. The latest developments in Yemen come as Iran threatens a forceful response “without geographical limits” to any renewed US and Israeli military campaign, Bloomberg reported. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei told commanders to be ready to strike back immediately and to widen their pool of possible US and Israeli targets. Iran’s army separately cautioned that any new attack by the US and Israel would extend the conflict to a far broader area.

Data point

6.5k — that’s how many franchise registrations Saudi Arabia recorded in the first nine months of 2026, up 53% from 4.2k at end-2025, according to a Commerce Ministry statement. Food and beverage, fuel and petroleum, and fashion led registrations.

***

You’re reading EnterpriseAM Saudi, your essential daily roundup of business, economics, and must-read news about Saudi, delivered straight to your inbox. We’re out Sunday through Thursday by 7am Riyadh time.

EnterpriseAM Saudi is available without charge thanks to the generous support of our friends at Tas’heel and Hassan Allam Properties.

Want to send us a story idea, request coverage, ask for a correction, or otherwise get in touch? Reach out to us on [email protected].

DID YOU KNOW that we also cover MENA+, Egypt, the UAE, and the MENA logistics industry?

Were you forwarded this email? Tap or click here to get your own copy of EnterpriseAM Saudi delivered every weekday.

***

The big story abroad

Hedging the AI wager: Companies are increasingly relying on financial derivatives such as put options and credit-default swaps to shield themselves from a possible downturn in AI stocks, with the price of default ins. on Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle climbing to its highest level since 2021. Neoclouds and data centers are also weighing put options linked to the price of computing power and compute indexes as a safeguard in case computing prices fall.

German ministers vowed harsh punishment for the rioters and looters who vandalized shops and left more than 100 police officers injured in Frankfurt overnight. They also commended security forces for stopping the unrest from spreading further. The violence centred on Frankfurt on Saturday, as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in dozens of German cities to call for better education and a lower cost of living. The rallies were organized by the campaign group “Gen Z regelt,” which roughly means “Gen Z takes charge.” Masked rioters in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, damaged 17 shops and looted five.

Overnight attacks by Russia hit energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions and cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Electricity was partly restored on Sunday as an unusual humanitarian ceasefire in the Kherson region came to an end. The truce had allowed civilians to leave the Russian-held city of Oleshky.