Dubai: Early mandates and talks in progress point towards an increase in Saudi Arabia’s initial public offerings in 2014 compared to last year, a senior investment official at a Saudi bank told Gulf News on Tuesday.
There will be a pick up in listings this year, said Khalid Nasser Al Muammar, chief executive officer at Saudi Hollandi Capital, on the sidelines of the final day of Sukuk Congress in Dubai yesterday.
In 2013, only five IPOs were launched in the Gulf’s biggest stock market. Saudi Hollandi Capital is currently working on one IPO, which it has a mandate for.
“All in all, we are working on three or four different IPOs at different stages,” said Al Muammar. “Other investment banks are working on other IPOs — I am aware of a few. We are co-underwriting on two of them, which are set to be launched in 2014.”
On the sukuk side, he said that Saudi Hollandi has a relatively small mandate for one local company — valued at 200-300 million Saudi riyals (Dh195.7-Dh293.6 million) and working on another, which is bigger at between 1-1.5 billion riyals.
