Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Balad may have been a small IPO, but it broke the wartime ice. Will others follow?

Saudi Arabia’s Dar Al Balad has become the second GCC listing to make it across the finish line since the Iran war began, with its shares surging a bit more than 28% at the start of trading on Tadawul’s main market.

The sale wasn’t massive: The IT-services firm floated a 30% stake worth SAR 205 mn, having priced it at the top of the range. Domestic institutional and retail appetite were strong.

The much bigger test comes right after Eid: Contractor Mutlaq Al Ghowairi (MGC) will open the order books on Sunday, 31 May for a listing expected to raise some SAR 3 bn, roughly 15x the size and a far harder read on how deep domestic appetite for new paper really is. MGC is a pure secondary sale of 30% (press release pdf | prospectus pdf).

MGC is one of several Saudi issuers exploring a listing. Delivery platform Ninja is lining upbanks for a potential USD 1 bn float in late 2026 or early 2027, and Arabian Dyar is also testing the waters. Behind them sits a deeper bench, Bloomberg reports: Olayan-backed Health Water Bottling is working with Lazard, Etihad Salam Telecom is shopping for junior advisors, PIF-backed ArcelorMittal Tubular Products Jubail has hired JPMorgan and HSBC, Alkhorayef Petroleum is preparing its regulatory paperwork, and Ejada Systems is renewing its approval.

MEANWHILE- Dubai Investments says it remains committed to floating a 24% stake in DubaiInvestments Park before year-end, subject to approvals. Management puts DIP’s valuation at AED 10.8-11 bn. It’s the sole UAE listing still in the chute that we’re aware of: Dubai Holding has paused its prep, and Emirates Global Aluminium has pushed to next year at the earliest.

War or not, global money managers are still flocking to ADGM and the DIFC. US investment bank Cantor secured final approval from ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority to run regulated activities out of Abu Dhabi, while Dutch corporate-services and fund administrator TMF Group, which works across 87 jurisdictions, and Gordian Capital, the IQ-EQ-owned cross-border fund platform that runs some USD 17 bn, both got nods to open in DIFC.

IN CONTEXT- This means 15 global shops have said they will set up shop or expand in ADGM or DIFC since the start of the war: 11 in ADGM and four in DIFC. Other names include Partners Capital, Bain, Barings, Hillhouse, Capital Group, and Man Group.

Cenomi Retail has been rocked by a massive corruption scandal: The Capital Market Authority is taking 17 people to criminal court over alleged manipulation of Cenomi Retail’s share price. Among the accused are current and former board members, an unnamed CEO, finance managers, and audit-team members at the former external auditor, per a CMA statement.

Cenomi Retail has been in survival mode for years now: The Zara franchisee formerly known as Fawaz Alhokair, has been deep in restructuring since 2024 and was rescued by Al-Futtaim’s SAR 2.52 bn purchase of the founders’ 49.95% stake last July. It’s now rebranding to AFG International. The stock is down c. 34.6% YTD.

We also have for you this morning a pile of AI news:

#1- Humain has Goldman Sachs to bankroll the compute race. PIF AI champion Humain has tapped Goldman Sachs to arrange a financing package of at least SAR 20 bn for data centers around Riyadh, with the money earmarked for infrastructure and GPUs to stand up 2 GW of capacity — about a third of the company’s 2034 target, Reuters reports.

Saudi is racing the UAE and Qatar to be the Gulf’s compute hub, and it’s financing that race like project infrastructure rather than a tech bet — even after Iranian drones hit AWS sites in the UAE and Bahrain.

Having to raise money is no surprise: The IEA pegs global data-center investment needs at USD 3.9 tn through 2030 and calls it “too large to be funded solely from the balance sheets of AI companies.”

#2- The UAE’s Core42 is funding AI the way you’d fund a power plant: The G42 unit has lined up USD 550 mn in structured trade finance from our friends at HSBC to push AI cloud and compute capacity into the US and Europe.

#3- MGX adds a fourth frontier-AI bet. Abu Dhabi’s MGX joined a USD 2.1 bn Series B for UK drug-discovery firm Isomorphic Labs, alongside leads Thrive Capital, Alphabet, GV, Temasek, CapitalG, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund. MGC has now added AI-designed drugs to a year that has seen it invest in OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic as it looks to build toward more than USD 100 bn plus in AI-related assets under management.

Adia is trimming Medline again. An Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) subsidiary, alongside shareholders linked to Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, is selling 60 mn shares in US healthcare giant Medline through a secondary offering. Earlier this year, an Adia subsidiary sold Medline shares worth north of USD 200 mn as it exits maturing investments in favour of new opportunities.

Speaking of Adia: It is being courted alongside state-linked UAE alternative investment firm Lunate for a rocket-engine raise. Europe’s The Exploration Company is talking with the two for a USD 200 mn round to build what it says will be Europe’s largest rocket engine.

Meanwhile, in Brazil… Mubadala Capital’s exit of Brazilian iron-ore terminal Porto Sudeste has reached round two. Its Brazilian arm, Acelen, has meanwhile locked-in USD 1.5 bn to start building a USD 3 bn refinery in Bahia, with a 10-institution consortium led by HSBC and the IFC funding part of it. Mubadala recently closed a third Brazil fund near USD 1 bn and is in on-again talks to sell the Mataripe refinery back to Petrobras.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Spain’s state-owned Cofides are launching a EUR 300 mn joint fund to back Spanish companies driving the country’s green transition, digital transformation, and tech innovation. The vehicle — the Ispania Growth Fund — will primarily back SMEs.

Averi goes public the back way: Dubai investment firm Averi Finance is pursuing a reversetakeover of Johannesburg-listed miner Mantengu that would hand it 66.7% of the enlarged group via 650 mn new shares, implying c. USD 179 mn enterprise value and a likely move to the JSE main board. A reverse merger sidesteps the cost and timeline of an IPO, and Averi wants the listing for institutional access as it scales across Africa, where it claims USD 15 bn of transactions in a decade. The JSE keeps drawing UAE names — Optasia IPO’d there last year for USD 375 mn.

SAB eats a SAR 6.4 bn ticket whole. Saudi Awwal Bank signed a SAR 6.4 bn bilateralfinancing with PIF-backed Albawani, ramping up its exposure to the kingdom’s slowing gigaproject pipeline, where Albawani works Diriyah, Seven, and Aramco Stadium. SAB loaned SAR 2bn loan last year Binladin Group for King Fahd Sports City.

We’re reading this against the news that Saudi Arabia plans up to SAR 150 bn (USD 40bn) of international real estate sukuk by 2030, opening with a SAR 20 bn tranche this year if rates and geopolitics cooperate — a push to move housing-finance funding off domestic banks and onto global markets.

MEANWHILE- Lenders are still backing top-end Dubai. Emirates NBD extended an AED367.3 mn facility to CPI Property Group against a portfolio of 19 Dubai ultra-prime homes to finance deferred payments through 2027. Banks are still underwriting the prime end even as the broad market cools because prime is holding even as overall activity fell 51% in the war’s first weeks.

Saudi fintech Arib closed a USD 23.5 mn round led by Merak Capital, blended with shariah-compliant murabaha facilities, to fund tech and new lending products. Arib runs a marketplace matching borrowers to banks and licensed lenders; Merak also led its 2022 seed round.

UAE-founded HR and payroll platform RemotePass raised USD 17.4 mn in a Series B led by EBRD Venture Capital. The funds are earmarked for Europe and US expansion and deeper compliance coverage in existing markets.

EFG Hermes brokers Oman’s first ABB. EFG Hermes was sole global coordinator on a USD 92.5 mn block sale of OQ Base Industries shares for the Saudi Omani Investment Company — the first accelerated bookbuild ever run in Oman’s capital markets.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING THIS MORNING

SpaceX filed for what would be the largest IPO ever — a Nasdaq listing targeted for 12 June at a USD 1.75 tn valuation and USD 70–75 bn in proceeds, more than 2x Aramco’s 2019 record, per its prospectus. The Gulf is on every side of it: PIF and Mubadala are longtime holders and GCC family offices bought in through secondary sales. The listing hands them a liquidity windfall just as PIF trims its international allocation from 30% to 20%.

Paramount‘s USD 111 bn takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery is drawing fire over its Gulf backing, with six Democratic senators writing the FCC to flag the roughly USD 24 bn from Abu Dhabi’s L’imad and other GCC funds in a group that would control CBS and CNN. Banks are separately lining up a c. USD 49.5 bn debt package, and CFIUS review is the next hurdle.

Dubai developer Select Group acquired three Delta Hotels by Marriott golf-and-country-clubresorts in the UK.

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