Good morning, friends, and a very Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating this morning. We hope you’re surrounded by loved ones and are thoroughly unplugged from the news cycle.

Our brisk issue for today takes a dive into Saudi’s first steps towards a market for trading tokenized real estate. REGA has put all the tech in place (we’re no slouches when it comes to digital transformation), but the real question that will make or break the market is clear tax regulation from Zatca.

ALSO- Acwa Power picked up Badeel’s stake in Saudi’s oldest water and power project, Shuaiba 1, for over SAR 830 mn. Let’s dive in.

PSAs-

Riyadh Metro is out with prices for annual and student tickets for 2026. Taking effect on 1 January 2026, annual passes will be priced at SAR 1,260 for regular class and SAR 3,150 for first class, while a four-month student semester pass will cost SAR 260 for regular class. Tickets will be offered in both digital and plastic formats.

Circle your calendar

New year, new tax: First invoices for White Land fees will be issued on Thursday, 1 Jan. Landowners of undeveloped lands exceeding 5k sqm within designated urban development zones in Riyadh can appeal the invoices, or request an extension during which they commit to developing the idle land or face paying fees for the whole period.

BACKGROUND- The new 2.5% base tax was introduced this year to promote development and increase supply in the real estate market, part of a wider set of reforms aimed at curbing a protracted trend of inflation in property prices.

Watch this space-

SPORTS — More chatter on an impending Al Hilal deal: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is reportedly inching closer to snapping up a 75% stake in the PIF-owned Al Hilal, with the deal set to be announced early in 2026, unnamed sources told Semafor.

The price tag is USD 400 mn, the sources said, which puts the top SPL club at some USD 530 mn (SAR 2 bn). The deal would be the biggest club privatization in Saudi so far.

What about the rest? The remaining 25% stake is reportedly owned by a non-profit organization that gets funding from Alwaleed, said unconfirmed reports from Bloomberg in September, when news of the negotiations first broke out.

Reports are conflicting out there, so take this with a grain of salt. Earlier reports, first picked up by Asharq Al Awsat and widely circulated this month, said the Kingdom Holding chairman is eyeing full control of the club for SAR 7.5 bn, with the deal set to be announced before the end of the year.

The PIF is moving on from building the SPL to leaving room for private investors, after it took control of Al Ittihad, Al Ahli, Al Nassr, and Al Hilal in June 2023 and shored up spending on transfers, eyeing privatization when the time is right.

IPO WATCH — Another Nomu IPO greenlighted: The Capital Market Authority (CMA) cleared Hamad MohammedAl-Drees &Partners for Industry and Mining for a potential listing on the parallel market, it said in a statement. The approval, valid for six months, should see the Riyadh-based company float 1.22 mn shares — good for a 20% stake — on Nomu.

Reality check: Five Nomu IPOs were canceled this year, while two others saw their six-month approval windows lapse without proceeding, signaling hesitation amid tight liquidity and a more selective approach by investors. The only ongoing Nomu IPO from KDL Logistics was 102% covered, marking a sharp contrast with last year’s heavy oversubscription rates and first-day pops. NomuC remains down roughly 26% YTD.

AVIATION — Riyadh Air is nearing the delivery of its first owned aircraft, after its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner completed its initial test flight (B1 flight) in Charleston, South Carolina, yesterday. Official certification is next for the fresh-out-of-the-oven aircraft before it is handed to the carrier for test flights done by its own pilots.

REMEMBER- Riyadh Air expects to receive one new plane a month from Boeing over the next year, after the carrier hit the skies back in October.

The flood gates are open: Despite global supply chain snags, the airline “remains confident that [its] launch will stay on schedule, with aircraft deliveries and operations progressing as planned,” a representative told EnterpriseAM in September. The carrier has an orderbook of 182 jets from Airbus and Boeing.

ART — Sotheby’s is pivoting to an art-only auction for its second Saudi outing, after itsFebruary debut showed strong collector appetite for fine art over secondary-market luxury. When the house returns to Diriyah on 31 January for Origins II, the Michael Jordan jerseys and Birkin bags that featured in its inaugural edition will be gone, replaced by over 70 works of fine art from international artists — including Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, and Saudi artist Mohammed Al Saleem.

The rationale: Sotheby’s maiden auction brought in USD 17.3 mn, but luxury lots — including jewelry and handbags — underperformed, resulting in an overall sell-through rate of 65.8%. “Building on the results achieved in February, this sale places a dedicated focus on fine art, reflecting the strong appetite we have seen among collectors,” Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art day sale, told Art News.

Sotheby’s continues to treat the region as a learning market: “This is a new market for us, each auction will naturally evolve,” Baghestani said. The broader regional push remains aggressive: its recent Abu Dhabi Collector’s Week generated USD 133 mn through a series of luxury sales.

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The Big Story Abroad

It’s a quiet morning for global business as just about all Western markets take the day off and folks — bridging or not — slide into a long weekend. The NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE, Paris, and Frankfurt exchanges are all closed.

Up first: Stocks hit another high on Wall Street yesterday as investors pine for a “Santa Claus rally” — hoping to see shares advance in the seven trading days that include the last five of 2025 and the first two of next year.

We promised ourselves we’d stop writing about the bloody Epstein files, but here we are: The US Department of Justice is looking for “emergency recruits” to work through Christmas and New Year’s after officials just happened to find there are another 1 mn or more documents they need to review. The story is front-page, above-the-fold news at every major global business news outlet. Read: DOJ finds a mn more epstein files it needs to review.

Closer to home: Israel is warning it could attack Iran once again — and Canada, the UK, Germany, and 11 other nations are condemning Israel ’s plans to approve 19 more West Bank settlements.

AND- Reuters is a bit concerned about US plans to make it easier for normies to invest in private credit and crypto.