Saudi’s Mutlaq Al Ghowairi will be the first big test of appetite for Saudi IPOs after Dar Al Balad forced the window open

It’s been relatively quiet in the week since we last wrote you folks, with markets across the region closed for the Eid Al Adha holiday. Among the headlines worth knowing:

Tadawul’s first heavyweight IPO since the start of the war got underway yesterday as infrastructure contractor Mutlaq Al Ghowairi opened institutional bookbuilding. The company is looking to raise up to SAR 3 bn (USD 800 mn) at a valuation of up to SAR 10 bn. IT services outfit Dar Al Balad was first to market before Eid, but Mutlaq is the real test of institutional appetite — Dar Al Balad raised the equivalent of just USD 54 mn.

We expect strong local appetite — and for foreign investors to sit on the sidelines. Even before the war, international appetite for Saudi equities was weak. Al Rajhi Capital and Morgan Stanley are joint global coordinators

Watch for Senaat unit Gulf Insulation to follow suit — it just filed for its own Tadawul listing.

MEANWHILE- Hong Kong-listed, AI-driven drug developer InSilico Medicine is weighing a secondary listing on the ADX after UAE investors backed its December Hong Kong float, Bloomberg reports. That would make it the first non-Gulf issuer on a regional index — a real test of Abu Dhabi’s cross-listing push after the ADX cross-listed a US-domiciled ETF last year.

AND- Keep an eye on Egypt. Banque du Caire and Misr Life are already in the pipeline to test the market as early as this fall, and now private equity outfit B Investments is lining up pharmacy chain El Ezaby for an EGX IPO, chairman Hazem Barakat says, riding strong appetite for its partial exit of Gourmet. El Ezaby has been 49%-owned by the Sovereign Fund of Egypt since 2023 and could head to market as early as 2027.

Watch this space: RMBV, the private equity firm led by Ahmed Badreldin, has filed for permission from Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority to list a SPAC later this year, according to a report. RMBV’s assets include Taaleem, Cleopatra Hotels, and Spinneys Egypt.

Saudi Aramco is checking out of Malaysia, offloading its 50% stake in PRefChem, its refining-and-petchem joint venture, to partner Petronas, which now owns the complex outright. Aramco paid USD 7 bn for that half in 2017, one of its biggest overseas downstream bets at the time. The oil giant is walking away to free up liquidity just as the Hormuz closure starves the plant of the Gulf crude.

In context: Aramco is on a USD 35 bn asset-monetization drive that will see it shed stakes in both mid- and downstream assets.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY

Investors still have plenty of appetite for the UAE: The Emirates’ May treasury sukuk drewAED 4.7 bn of orders for AED 1.1 bn on offer.

Moody’s affirmed Saudi Arabia at Aa3 with a stable outlook, looking past the Hormuz closure even as it pencils in a 1.7% GDP contraction this year (ratings note). The cleanest read yet on how the agencies are pricing the war.

Emirates NBD launches today an open offer for up to 26% of the public float of India’s RBL Bank. It’s the final stage of its c. USD 3 bn takeover of RBL.

PIF-backed Alinma Bank closed two AT1 sukuk, raising SAR 3 bn at home at 6.50% (part of an SAR 5 bn program) and USD 500 mn in London via a sustainable tranche at 6.625%. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, ADIB, and Warba were among the syndicate members.

EGX-listed export powerhouse Oriental Weavers wants a bigger slice of its own best assets, exploring mostly share-swap deals to raise its stakes in five export-focused subsidiaries, according to a regulatory filing (pdf).

Cairo-headquartered Beltone has tapped Forvis Mazars to run a fair-value study on its acquisition of UAE-based SPV Lumen Aegis — a deal its general assembly approved last December. The takeover will fold a portfolio of Emirati and Egyptian assets onto Beltone’s listed balance sheet.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul +0.5% • ADX +0.5% • DFM +1.1% • EGX30 +0.7%

Brent USD 91.12 / bbl • Gold USD 4,593 / oz • USD / SAR 3.75 • USD / EGP 52.35