Saudi Arabia’s IPO boom pulls in end-of-year retail demand ahead of busy 2025: Report

Saudi hospital operator Almoosa Health received enough retail demand to almost cover its entire SAR 1.69 billion IPO.

The company’s 20 per cent retail offer attracted SAR 1.4 billion of demand from 395,986 investors leaving it nearly 4.1 times subscribed, IFR reported.

The offer was open December 23–24.

Shares earlier priced at the top of a SAR 123-127 range after attracting SAR 173 billion of institutional demand, with the vast majority of the demand coming from local institutions.

Almoosa Health’s offer overlapped with the SAR 1.21 billion IPO of online cosmetics retailer Nice One Beauty Digital Marketing Company, which had a 10 per cent retail offer.

The Nice One issue, which ran from December 24–25, received SAR 908 million of demand from 418,116 investors, making the issue 7.5 times covered.

The company shares were offered at top of the range pricing of SAR 35, valuing the company at over SAR 4 billion and making it the first tech unicorn to debut on Tadawul.

Tadawul is expected to see a continued busy IPO pipeline in 2025 with approvals already granted from the Capital Market Authority for listings by United Cartons Industries, Arabian Company for Agriculture and Industrial Investment and most recently Umm Al Qura for Development and Construction Company.

Umm Al Qura reportedly received approval on December 23 to list a 9.1 per cent stake, involving the sale of 130.8 million shares.

Public Investment Fund-backed Umm Al Qura is involved in the Masar Destination project to develop a commercial and hospitality district in Mecca as part of plans to increase the capacity of the city to host up to 30 million pilgrims a year by 2030.

Approvals are valid for six months meaning all of these deals will need to fall into H1 2025 if launched.

Listing by the country’s budget airline Flynas is also expected early in the year, though its proposal is awaiting approval from the CMA.