Good morning, wonderful people, and happy THURSDAY. We’re rounding out the week with a relatively meaty issue to punctuate the Ramadan slowdown that’s taken hold over the past several days.
Leading the news well this morning is the latest development in the leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts (EA), with EA bondholders blocking a debt buyback maneuver that was designed to trim costs, saying the move would cheat them out of a mandatory payout. We also have fresh trade surplus figures, as well as new proposed regulations that could allow the subsidiaries of already-listed companies skip the IPO process to list on the main market directly.
WEATHER- Blowing dust and patches of fog: Active winds will whip up sand across Qassim, Riyadh, and the Eastern Province, stretching into Najran and sweeping through Makkah, Madinah, and Tabuk — especially along the coasts. Meanwhile, fog may form over the highlands of Jazan and Aseer, with misty conditions also possible in parts of Al Jouf and the Northern Borders.
- Riyadh: 25°C high / 15°C low;
- Jeddah: 29°C high / 23°C low;
- Makkah: 31°C high / 23°C low;
- Dammam: 26°C high / 14°C low.
Watch this space
CAPITAL MARKETS — View gears up for main market transfer: Nomu-listed developer View United Real Estate is eyeing a move to Tadawul’s main market, after its board signed off on a transition yesterday, according to a bourse filing. The move, subject to regulatory approvals, is a bid for higher liquidity and inclusion in broader indices, shifting the company from a growth play on Nomu to a more mature institutional asset.
Tapping deeper institutional liquidity following a tough 2025 for Nomu: Five parallel market IPOs were pulled last year, and the index shed 26% amid a broader flight to quality. View now joins Alwasail Industrial and Nofoth Food Products, both of which upgraded to Tadawul’s big league last month in a similar move.
REFRESHER- View is currently scaling its Prosperous Riyadh program, which partners with owners of white land to convert tax-liable plots into residential and commercial projects. With SAR 286 mn in recently inked contracts for residential towers in Al Nakheel and elsewhere in the capital, the jump to TASI would give it the capital-markets heft needed to become a large-scale urban developer.
EXPANSION — Zoho to scale up AI infrastructure operations in Saudi + UAE: Indian software firm Zoho plans to develop data centers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and South Africa, Bloomberg reports, citing the firm’s Middle East and Africa head Hyther Nizam. The expansion to Saudi remains under discussion, while a UAE partnership with Equinix is already in motion.
Why it matters: Zoho is shifting from standard cloud software to local AI infrastructure, aiming to provide faster, regionally hosted services. By working with Equinix rather than US hyperscalers, the company offers a solution for regional firms concerned about data residency and excessive reliance on Western platforms.
The regional expansion is already in progress: The software solutions provider began its expansion into Saudi by obtaining a cloud service provider certification from the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Ministry in December. The certification allows the firm to host restricted government and commercial data. It also previously earmarked AED 100 mn for its UAE expansion, launching data centers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last month.
OIL + GAS — Saudi tanker demand on the rise: Saudi Arabia’s National Shipping Company (Bahri) — the country’s biggest oil shipper — provisionally chartered at least five supertankers, piling into the spot market as rates rip higher, Bloomberg reports, citing brokers with knowledge of the matter. The ships, tracked by Tankers International and confirmed by brokers, are headed for Asia with Saudi barrels.
It’s a tell: Owners usually only dip into the spot market when their fleets can’t keep up with their own cargoes, and the oil market watches Bahri’s activities closely for clues on Saudi flows. The Kingdom has recently sold condensate from the Jafurah gas project — part of the LFDP — which would liberate domestic crude previously burned for power.
Rates are doing the talking: Middle East-to-China runs flirted with USD 200k per day this week, marking a first since 2020. VLCC earnings are also at their highest in years as geopolitical risk adds a premium, with traders bracing for any disruption tied to US-Iran tension and oil flows via Hormuz.
What’s next? Saudi plans to ship some 8 mn barrels of crude to China next month, after reducing prices to five-year lows — and the freight market is already front-running it.
OIL + GAS — Saudi Arabia is quietly boosting output and shipments just in case a potential US strike on Iran disrupts flows from the Middle East, Reuters reports, citing two sources it says are familiar with the matter. The Kingdom is preemptively raising output now so that if regional flows are suddenly cut, the world isn’t left scrambling. If the dust settles and diplomacy wins out, the taps will be tightened again to stay in line with Opec+ quotas, one of the sources said.
Crude exports are expected to hit a three-year peak this month, having reached 7.3 mn bbl / d so far, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Should the trend prevail for the rest of the month, that would amount to a m-o-m increase of just over 400k bbl / d.
It’s a move we’ve seen before: Last year, Riyadh boosted exports by some 0.5 mn bbl / d and redirected crude to overseas storage when Washington first turned up the heat on Tehran’s nuclear sites. US President Trump hasn’t been shy about the possibility of a strike to force Iran put its nuclear ambitions to rest.
Why the nerves? Iran isn’t a small player — it handles over 3% of global supply. But the real pinch is the Strait of Hormuz. If Tehran decides to retaliate by choking off that narrow passage, it would block 20 mn bbl / d from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar from reaching the global market.
ENERGY — Aramco suspended LPG exports from its Juaymah terminal this week, following structural damage to its propane and butane delivery infrastructure. Aramco canceled all propane and butane deliveries out of Juaymah for the next several weeks.
Data point
SAR 13.9 bn — that’s the total value of consumer spending via point of sale (PoS) in the Kingdom in the week ending 21 February, dropping 9.3% from the previous week, according to Saudi Central Bank data (pdf). The number of transactions also dipped, falling 12.5% to 220.6 mn. The decline was driven by a 28.3% w-o-w drop in the restaurants and cafes sector, followed by education (-26%), and personal care (-23.6%).
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The big story abroad
A single story is dominating headlines this morning: Nvidia’s latest earnings came in above analyst expectations, calming investor fears about a potential AI slowdown. The most valuable company in the world reported record revenues of USD 68.1 bn for the three-month period ending in January, up 73% y-o-y, driven by data center revenues.
Looking ahead: The company penciled in USD 78 bn in sales this quarter, excluding any income from China data centers, as the company remains unsure whether it will be able to do business in the country.
Markets reax: Nvidia shares gained 3% in after-hours trading following the news, pushing Wall Street up. “It’s clear from Nvidia’s latest numbers and [investors’] forecast that concerns about an AI slowdown simply are not showing up yet,” TECHnalysis Research’s Bob O’Donnell told Reuters.


