THIS MORNING: The events calendar shifts again as FII and Formula E move to 2027

Good morning, all. Riyadh spent the weekend working two diplomatic channels at once: urging Washington to hold off on striking Iran and pressing Europe to blacklist the Houthis as a terrorist group. In the meantime, drones and missiles hit the Kingdom’s south and its oil infrastructure.

Beyond the front lines, the economic picture is mixed. On the confident side, Saudi’s asset-management industry grew 20% through the first half and is on track for USD 400 bn next year, with foreign managers taking a bigger slice of the business. The same appetite shows up in the boardroom, where multinationals already in the Kingdom are holding their ground. On the cautious side, prospective entrants are delaying new setups until the picture clears.

Today’s 3Q earnings are also a mixed bag. A run of industrials — including Saudi Energy, Senaat, MESC, and Sinad — grew revenue, only to watch higher costs and paper losses eat the bottom line.

Calendar moves

The Kingdom’s events calendar is getting another reshuffle, as regional escalation pushes back marquee investment and sports gatherings.

The Future Investment Initiative (FII) is being pushed back a year. The FII Institute moved its tenth edition to 25-28 October 2027 in Riyadh, from 26-29 October 2026. The later date should secure stronger international turnout for the milestone edition, FII Institute CEO Maha bint Mishari bin Abdulaziz said.

Formula E has pushed its Jeddah double-header to 16-17 April 2027 from 18-19 December 2026 because of the regional conflict, meaning Saudi will host the season’s sixth and seventh races instead of the opener. The championship will now kick off in Mexico City on 16 January. The decision was agreed upon with the PIF and FIA to give the situation more time to settle, Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds said. No replacement venue is being considered, and if April proves unworkable, a shorter calendar is more likely, with a decision due by mid- to late February.

Not every move is a delay. Knowledge Economic City signed on as host partner of the Future Hospitality Summit Saudi Arabia 2027, bringing the forum to the DoubleTree by Hilton at Madinah Gate on 13-14 April 2027, after four editions in Riyadh.

Oil flows back

Saudi Arabia’s crude and refined petroleum exports have averaged 8.57 mn bbl / d so far this quarter, some 37% higher than the 3Q average of 6.25 mn bbl / d, Asharq Business reports, citing Vortexa shipment-tracking data through 11 November. The rise comes as oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz returned to pre-war levels in October. Prices remain high — Morgan Stanley expects Dated Brent to average USD 105 / bbl in 4Q, up from USD 63.7 a year earlier.

October did much of the heavy lifting. Crude exports averaged 7.52 mn bbl / d last month and have since eased to 5.77 mn bbl / d, putting November on track to be the third-highest month for crude exports since the war began. Refined-product shipments also slipped to 1.39 mn bbl / d from 1.55 mn. More than 3 mn bbl / d of November crude has shipped from Gulf terminals, and c. 2.5 mn bbl / d moved through Red Sea ports.

Will the rebound ease budget pressure? Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank chief economist Monica Malik expects higher prices and output to lift Saudi oil revenues and Aramco’s royalty payments in 4Q, forecasting the fiscal deficit to narrow to 5.2% of GDP this year from 5.8% in 2025. Former IMF Saudi mission head Tim Callen is less optimistic, warning that government spending usually rises toward year-end, which could push the deficit toward SAR 300 bn, or 6% of GDP. The Kingdom recorded an SAR 244.3 bn deficit in 9M 2026, exceeding the SAR 165.4 bn it planned for the full year.

Courting foreign buyers in Makkah

Sulaiman Al Rajhi Real Estate plans to speed up its investments in Makkah, expecting foreign-ownership rules to widen its potential buyer pool to 2 bn people from around 20 mn, CEO Moath Al Makhdob told Asharq Business (watch, runtime: 4:36).

The pipeline: Its Tilal Village project — among the zones opened to non-Saudi Muslim buyers — has some 3k residential units due in 2027 and 2028, plus 55k sqm of new commercial space. On the hospitality side, subsidiary Tilal Hospitality for Hajj has agreed to host 17k Pakistani pilgrims and plans six hotels with around 830 rooms in Madinah within three to four years, on top of the c. 6k rooms it already runs in Makkah.

REMEMBER- After the foreign property ownership rules took effect in January, private and foreign capital has been flowing into Makkah’s transport, real estate, and hospitality projects. This includes the Hajj-season transport project Wasel Al Haram, the Royal Commission’s redevelopment projects across six districts, Umm Al Qura’s sale of a Masar plot for a hospitality tower, and Indonesian sovereign fund Danantara’s SAR 6 bn commitment to hotels and retail at Thakher Makkah.

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The big story abroad

Microsoft apologized on Friday for a global outage that cut off businesses, schools, and governments from Outlook, Teams, and other workplace tools. The company blamed “an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change,” rather than a cyberattack or anything AI-related. Microsoft said the service is showing “broad recovery and stability” and has promised a full post-incident report once a review is complete.

Airlines canceled 4.5k US flights and pushed back another 4.4k yesterday, with the country still reeling from the longest nationwide flight shutdown since the 9/11 attacks, Reuters reports. A major communications breakdown on Friday led US aviation authorities to ground almost every departing flight across the country for almost five hours. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy traced the disruption to at least one new router that FAA contractor L3Harris had installed at a remote site, and is seeking USD 50 bn to modernize the country’s air traffic control systems.

Some 106k people protested across France yesterday, including 24k in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry. Demonstrators took to the streets over issues ranging from rising living costs to a proposal to give police greater legal protection. The protests were smaller than other recent demonstrations. The ministry said the situation is largely under control despite clashes in several cities, including Marseille, Lyon, and Lille, where projectiles were thrown at security forces.