Good morning, friends. We lead today with a warning shot from EFG Hermes: the oil-price bump that briefly eased Saudi Arabia’s finances in the early months of the war has already faded, leaving the Kingdom in a tighter spot than before the fighting started — and now carrying fresh bills for logistics, security, and energy infrastructure on top.
ALSO- We’ve got Spinneys’ CEO on why the Kingdom is now the chain's biggest bet outside the UAE, plus a run through a mixed 2Q earnings season from Masar, Sisco, Makkah Construction, Alramz, and Saudi Re.
DataVolt targets new funding by year-end
Data center developer DataVolt aims to secure financing for all its under-construction Saudi facilities within six months, CEO Rajit Nanda told AGBI. The AI company is going the non-recourse route for project financing, where lenders are repaid from each project’s own cashflow rather than from the parent company’s balance sheet.
Why the funding model matters: While common in power and water, this structure is rare for multi-tenant data centers because lenders must underwrite multiple customer contracts instead of a single hyperscaler lease. If applied, the model would shift the company’s data center investment from a large upfront capital deployment to recurring payments.
It proved the model in June, reaching financial close on up to USD 150 mn of 12-year non-recourse debt for a USD 250 mn, 12 MW data center in Tashkent, with the EBRD contributing USD 78 mn alongside DEG, Proparco, and the Opec Fund. DataVolt spent months stress-testing its customer contracts for creditworthiness and replaceability to get lenders comfortable with the multi-tenant risk. It now wants to apply the same structure across its Saudi portfolio.
The liquidity will serve a loaded pipeline, including a 1.5 GW data center at Neom’s Oxagon (phase one due by 2028), alongside a USD 500 mn Riyadh East data center. Both are part of DataVolt’s USD 5 bn investment commitment to the Kingdom.

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Taking the long way round
Six Saudi-flagged supertankers reroute around Africa: Six Saudi-flagged supertankers, operated by Bahri, have changed course in the Gulf of Aden and are heading to southern Africa rather than transiting the blockaded Bab Al Mandab and the southern Red Sea, Reuters reports, citing ship-tracking data.
A 25-day detour: The vessels, sailing empty after returning from Asia, appear to have rerouted in response to Houthi threats against Saudi shipping, trade sources told the newswire. The longer route could add at least 25 days to voyages that would otherwise return to Saudi Red Sea ports via the Suez Canal, Reuters calculations showed.
IN CONTEXT- The rerouting follows the Houthis’ Saudi-targeted blockade of Bab Al Mandab and attacks on Saudi-linked vessels that expanded the Red Sea’s high-risk ins. zone. Maritime security firm Ambrey also classified ships calling at Saudi ports as high risk.
Not everyone is avoiding the route: Two tankers carrying a combined 3 mn barrels of Saudi crude managed to cross Bab Al Mandab over the weekend despite the blockade.
Crude exports fell in July: The Kingdom’s crude exports amounted to around 4.2 mn bbl / d last month, an m-o-m drop of 460k barrels, according to tanker data by Bloomberg. When accounting for cargoes loaded onto ships that remain trapped inside the Arabian Gulf, the m-o-m drop amounts to 230k barrels, a markedly less drastic difference.
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The big story abroad
Conflicting accounts over the US-Iran war are taking the lead today, as US President Donald Trump claims that talks with Tehran are underway and that the Strait of Hormuz would imminently reopen. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei denied ongoing talks with Washington, stating instead that Tehran is discussing shipping administration in the contested waterway with Oman.
As the regional conflict continues to strain oil supply, Trump has chastised ExxonMobil and Chevron for reaping gigantic windfalls over rising oil prices. The energy giants have earned as much as USD 318 mn per day in 2Q, a more than threefold y-o-y jump. Trump urged the companies to “give some of that back to the public” and trim prices at the pump.
Apple issued a new challenge to the UK government’s attempt to gain backdoor access to encrypted user data, a push the government defends as essential for protecting the public from terrorism and serious crime. The government’s prior demand called for access to data from UK and US customers, which triggered a diplomatic brawl between London and Washington last year.
JPMorgan Chase will plug USD 750 bn into US housing through 2035 as part of its American Dream Initiative, which aims to construct or preserve 1 mn affordable housing units and help 500k customers acquire homes.
Visa is acquiring Israeli fraud detection startup BioCatch for USD 2.4 bn, continuing the payment player’s expansion into cybersecurity amid a flood of AI-powered scams. Under the agreement, Visa will acquire the startup's behavioral biometrics platform, which analyzes user interaction data to detect scammers and bots.


