Saudi Market Monitor

Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) Weekly Update | Week 3

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 20:03:56 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

At a Glance

The index closed its third week at 1,015.42, giving back 0.32% against the prior week's close of 1,018.65 and trimming the cumulative return since the August 10 launch to 1.5%. The week was not a straight line: the BCSI touched 1,001.20 on Wednesday before recovering through the back half and posting a 1.25% Friday gain to close near the week's high. For the first time since launch, the index underperformed all three Saudi benchmarks. The TASI gained 2.75% to close at 11,237.93, the Nomu added 0.81% to 21,797.66, and the iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF gained 0.59% to 39.26. The gap reflects the compositional difference: the TASI's move was driven by domestic Saudi names not held by the index, while the BCSI's largest constituents absorbed the western macro headwinds from the Warsh repricing and the commodity pullback into week-end.

What Moved the Index

The week’s marquee performers were Swvl Holdings (NASDAQ: SWVL, 1.4% weight), which now sits 121.3% above its August 10 base following continued momentum in the name. Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX, 1.8% weight), extended its cumulative return from 29.6% to 46.7%, roughly 13% on the week, on the release of all Phase 1 assay results from As Safra confirming a large coherent copper system, and Diales Group (AIM: DIAL, 1.2% weight), added further ground from its base to close at 12.8% above launch, continuing to grind higher on no company-specific news.

The index’s primary drags were familiar names. Energy Recovery (NASDAQ: ERII, 17.7% weight) extended its cumulative decline to -10.7% from base, with Friday’s Warsh repricing compounding the macro pressure on rate-sensitive industrials that has weighed on the name since launch. Kuya Silver (CNSX: KUYA, 4.6% weight) slid further to -11.8% from base as post-results selling continued following last week’s H1 2026 loss disclosure. NTG Clarity Networks (TSXV: NCI, 0.7% weight) remains the index’s deepest cumulative drawdown at -39.6% from base, though its modest weight limits the index-level damage.

News From Constituents

Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX) released all remaining Phase 1 assay results from the As Safra Copper-Gold Project, confirming a large coherent copper system across the +800m Central Copper Zone. Phase 1 also confirmed a second copper system at As Safra Southeast and extended the polymetallic breccia a further 120m to the northwest, with the broader 5.5km mineralised corridor still largely untested. Phase 2, comprising more than 25,000m of drilling is planned to commence within six weeks. SNX simultaneously announced a $12.85m capital raising via a single tranche at $0.10 per CDI to fund Phase 2.

Perma-Pipe International Holdings (NASDAQ: PPIH) closed a new global credit facility with J.P. Morgan comprising a $75M revolving credit facility, a $14M term loan, and $50M in incremental capacity, totalling $139M. The facility consolidates multiple existing arrangements across jurisdictions including Saudi bank facilities into a single global structure. Q2 2026 results are scheduled for September 9.

Swvl Holdings (NASDAQ: SWVL) closed a $14.5M strategic investment round, led by Coefficient LP, a Houston-based firm backed by the Sawiris family, which invested $10M and whose founding partner Abdalla Ali will join Swvl’s board. The round was subsequently upsized by $1.5M via a separate placement to Sofico Holdings, an Egyptian family investment firm with seven decades of transport sector history. Swvl intends to use proceeds to accelerate US expansion, launch a lending product for transport operators in its network, and strengthen the balance sheet ahead of a growing pipeline of multi-year enterprise and government contracts.

Peako Limited (ASX: PKO) commenced UAV magnetics surveys across five key targets at its KSA projects, covering 54km² and approximately 1,400 line kilometres across the Sukhaybarat South, Wadi Jarir, and Jabal Jumaymah licence areas in preparation for maiden KSA drilling programmes planned for October. Peako also filed its ASX price query response, confirming ionic soil assay results from Wadi Jarir are expected in mid-September, and cited the August 17 EGM approval and the subsequent gold price surge as the most likely explanation for the recent trading activity.

Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies (ENXTPA: ALHGR) announced a partnership with CSBT Environnement to incorporate marine calcium carbonate derived from scallop shell waste into its 0% clinker cement formulations. CSBT will process scallop shell waste into 99% purity calcium carbonate via a chemical-free grinding process and supply it to Hoffmann Green as a raw material, advancing the company’s circular economy positioning. The partnership is consistent with Hoffmann’s broader decarbonization strategy and its 22-year exclusive licensing agreement for H-KSA cement technology in Saudi Arabia.

How Markets Held Up

On the Saudi side, the TASI’s 2.75% gain was the strongest week of the three-week BCSI period, driven by the output from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Paris visit. The agreements included a $5B Bpifrance credit line for French companies operating in the Kingdom, a separate $5B financing package for Riyadh Metro and Expo 2030 rolling stock, a $3B Saudi Energy grid financing framework, and $3.7B in Aramco procurement agreements with SLB and Vallourec. Alstom won a EUR 500M Riyadh Metro contract. On the Saudi capital markets side, incoming CMA chairman Mazen Al Sudairi arrived with markets pricing a potential increase in the 49% foreign ownership cap to 75%, which Morgan Stanley estimates could draw $4.3B in passive inflows if implemented before MSCI’s October review. Maaden secured $1B in international syndicated financing. A Bahri vessel was involved in a security incident off Yanbu as the Houthi naval blockade continued, and Saudi Arabia is exploring a state-backed war risk insurance pool offering up to SAR 700M per insured event.

In western markets, the week split cleanly. Nvidia reported Q2 revenue of $96.2B, driven by $89B in data center sales, and projected 70% revenue growth for the upcoming fiscal year, lifting the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 0.7% and 1.6% respectively on Thursday. Warsh reversed the mood Friday with his debut Jackson Hole speech, stating the Fed may have “work to do” on inflation and pushing September rate hike odds from roughly 35% to nearly 58%. Gold pulled back from a three-month high of $4,696 on Tuesday to close the week near $4,563. Brent softened toward $83. The S&P 500 ended the week down 0.26% and the Nasdaq down 0.53%. Canada’s Q2 GDP came in at 3.3% annualized, the strongest since 2023, with Q1 revised to a slight positive, but any momentum was overshadowed by 50% US tariffs on $28B in Canadian goods taking effect August 22 and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs set for September 8.

What to Watch For This Week

The Bank of Canada held rates today at 2.25%. Canada's retaliatory tariffs take effect September 8; any further escalations before then would be the most immediate variable for the index's Canadian-listed names. September rate hike odds now sit near 58% following Warsh's remarks, with August jobs and CPI data due early September as the inputs that will determine whether that probability firms further. Sierra Nevada Gold's Phase 2 programme at As Safra is expected to commence within six weeks, and Peako's ionic soil assay results from Wadi Jarir are expected in mid-September, the next catalyst for both names.

We welcome suggestions from our reader network on companies we should consider for inclusion. If there is a name you think belongs in the index, we want to hear from you.

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Purpose

Most North American investors tracking Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation are doing so through a narrow lens: Saudi Aramco, the Tadawul’s (TASI) headline moves, and the occasional PIF headline. Companies that are actually building the bridge between global capital and Saudi Arabia’s opening economy are largely invisible to institutional and retail investors alike. The Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) exists to change that.

The Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) is a market-cap weighted index of globally listed companies with tangible, verified exposure to Saudi Arabia’s economic opening, built for the North American investor. Each constituent is verified against primary sources such as annual reports, 10-K and 20-F filings, regulatory announcements and press releases. Full constituent list and index methodology can be found in the introductory post for the BCSI below.

SMM Company Spotlight: Nahdi Medical Company (Tadawul:4164)

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:43:59 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Purpose

English-language coverage of individual Tadawul and Nomu-listed companies is limited. Most investors tracking Saudi Arabia’s transformation can name Saudi Aramco, but the carriers, miners, industrials, and consumer names being built to support a $1.8T economy in transition rarely receive the analytical treatment they deserve for a North American audience. The SMM Company Spotlight exists to close that gap. Alongside our main bi-weekly newsletter covering newsflow in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, every other week we will select one Saudi-listed company, break down its business model, financials, governance, and Vision 2030 positioning, and translate it into terms a North American investor can digest.

We cover names across all sectors and exchanges. If there is a company or sector you would like us to feature, reach out. We welcome suggestions from our reader network.

Nahdi Medical Company (Tadawul:4164)

Inside this Issue:

The Vision 2030 Connection

Nahdi Medical Company sits at the center of Saudi Arabia’s healthcare transformation across three Vision 2030 mandates: expanding private sector participation in healthcare from 25% to 65%, building a preventive health culture across the Kingdom’s 35M people, and developing the digital infrastructure that connects Saudi citizens to services they previously accessed through the public system. The company holds ~30% of the private retail pharmaceutical market, operates 1,222 pharmacies reaching 97% of the Saudi population, and has built the Kingdom’s most advanced pharmacy-anchored omnihealth platform. It is not a beneficiary of Vision 2030; it is one of the primary private-sector vehicles through which the health transformation program is being executed.

The central risk is execution complexity across simultaneous investment cycles. Nahdi is simultaneously scaling a retail pharmacy network, building a polyclinic business, which is still in the investment phase, rolling out digital health infrastructure, and expanding into the UAE, each competing for capital and management attention. The polyclinic network is growing quickly but its financial contribution remains modest relative to the pharmacy core. The gap between where Omnihealth revenue sits today and where it needs to be to justify the capital going in is the most important number to watch over the next two years.

The Business

Nahdi Medical Company (Tadawul: 4164) is Saudi Arabia’s largest integrated pharmacy and healthcare platform, operating 1,222 pharmacies across nearly 150 cities and villages in the Kingdom and 45 locations across the UAE (Dubai & Abu Dhabi). The core business serves ~84M guest transactions annually, generating SAR 10.2B in group revenue in FY2025, the first time the company has crossed the SAR 10B revenue threshold. Beyond retail pharmacy, Nahdi operates through three verticals: Pharmacy Retail, Omnichannel, and Omnihealth.

Pharmacy Retail contributed SAR 9.7B in KSA revenue in FY2025. The Private Label portfolio reached SAR 1.7B in sales, representing 17.4% of pharmacy retail revenue and 37.5% growth year-over-year, now including the company’s first Private Label medicines. The Nuhdeek loyalty program reached 6.5M active members contributing 67% of total pharmacy retail revenue, making it one of the largest loyalty ecosystems in the Kingdom. The Omnichannel business generated SAR 2.5B in online sales, representing 25.8% of pharmacy retail revenue. The Omnihealth segment generated SAR 350M in revenue, up 75.3% year over year, through 14 NahdiCare polyclinics across 9 cities, more than 650,000 telemedicine consultations, and 120,000 home healthcare visits. Group EBITDA reached SAR 1.72B in FY2025 at a 16.9% margin. The company carries zero financial debt and distributed SAR 728M in dividends at an 88% payout ratio, funded entirely through internal cash generation.

Governance & Ownership

Nahdi Medical Company was established in June 1986 and listed on the Saudi Exchange main market on March 22, 2022. The company’s capital is divided into 130M ordinary shares with Al Nahdi Holding Company having a 38.08% stake, SEDCO Holding at 25%, and Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Masbahi holds 6.92%, leaving a free float of approximately 30%. The Board of Directors consists of 7 members, including international expertise from Amazon, Airbnb, OLX, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the UK. The CEO, Yasser Joharji, holds both a board seat and the executive role, with over 30 years of sector experience. The company operates under a semi-annual dividend policy funded from net profit. FY2025 dividends totaled SAR 5.60 per share, representing a yield of approximately 6% at the current share price.

Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the Qualified Foreign Investor framework, Nahdi shares are directly accessible to all categories of North American investors without structural barriers.

At a Glance

The North American Lens

For Canadian investors, Nahdi maps most directly onto the Shoppers Drug Mart model before its acquisition by Loblaws: a dominant pharmacy chain with national coverage, a scaled loyalty program, a growing private label business, and an expanding portfolio of health services layered on top of a core retail pharmacy operation. The difference is that Shoppers built its position in a mature, heavily insured Canadian market with limited remaining penetration upside. Nahdi is building in a market where private healthcare participation is mandated to more than double under Vision 2030, and the polyclinic and digital health investments are still in early stages of generating return. Loblaws today, which absorbed Shoppers and carries the full food and pharmacy retail footprint, operates at an 11.1% EBITDA margin while Nahdi operates at 16.9% on a pure pharmacy and health services model, with no grocery drag diluting the margin structure.

The US comparisons add context on the omnihealth ambition. CVS spent years attempting to transform from a pharmacy retailer into an integrated healthcare platform, acquiring Aetna and building out Oak Street Health primary care clinics. The market has not rewarded that effort: CVS trades at an 13.5x EV/EBITDA multiple on a 3.7% EBITDA margin, with a $5.7B goodwill impairment on its Health Care Delivery unit now on the books. Kroger provides a cleaner reference point for the retail pharmacy economics alone, illustrating what happens to margins when grocery volume dominates the mix and reimbursement pressure compounds over time. What both US names confirm is that pharmacy-to-healthcare pivots are structurally difficult in markets where the government is a competing provider.

The most direct regional peer is Al-Dawaa Medical Services Company, operating 975 pharmacies with a similar retail pharmacy model but a smaller footprint, lower digital penetration, and no polyclinic or omnihealth platform of comparable scale. Al-Dawaa operates at a 13.1% EBITDA margin against Nahdi’s 16.9%, and has no equivalent to the Nahdi polyclinic network or the Omnihealth digital layer currently in buildout.

On valuation, Nahdi trades at 7.4x EV/EBITDA and 1.2x EV/Sales, a significant discount to every international peer in the industry. Loblaws sits at 11.8x EV/EBITDA, CVS at 13.5x, and Kroger at 9.7x, all in markets with structurally lower margin profiles than Nahdi’s. The most instructive comparison is against Al-Dawaa, which trades at 7.5x EV/EBITDA on a 13.1% EBITDA margin: the market is currently pricing Nahdi at parity with its smaller, lower-margin, less-diversified Saudi peer. This either reflects investor skepticism about the Omnihealth return profile or a broader discount applied to Saudi-listed healthcare equities. Whether the parity is warranted depends almost entirely on the polyclinic network’s trajectory toward profitability and the rate at which Omnihealth revenue scales as a share of the total business.

What to Watch

Omnihealth profitability trajectory is the single most important variable in the medium-term investment case. The segment is expanding from 14 toward 40 polyclinics by 2030, meaning the business will remain in investment mode for several years. The rate at which new locations reach breakeven continues to compound, and will determine whether Omnihealth becomes a material earnings contributor or remains a cost center.
Private Label medicines expansion is the most defensible margin lever in the near term. The portfolio reached SAR 1.7B at 17.4% of pharmacy retail revenue with the first pharmaceutical SKUs launched in FY2025. Whether management can scale this without compromising the quality standards is the main question.
UAE profitability: the Emirates network reached 45 pharmacies and SAR 190M in revenue at 35.5% growth, but management has not disclosed UAE-specific margins and the competitive and regulatory environment differs materially from the Kingdom.
Wasfaty e-prescription volumes are the leading indicator for public-to-private prescription flow. Nahdi processed 2.3M e-prescriptions in FY2025. Any acceleration represents incremental foot traffic with minimal additional cost.

The Bottom Line

Nahdi is the most direct listed vehicle on the Tadawul for investors seeking exposure to Saudi Arabia's healthcare transformation across all its layers simultaneously: a near-dominant pharmacy network reaching 97% of the population, a growing private label business with meaningful margin upside, a polyclinic and digital health platform being built from a zero-debt balance sheet, and a loyalty ecosystem generating over two-thirds of total revenue. For North American investors who understand the Shoppers Drug Mart and CVS capital framework, Nahdi's business model is immediately readable; the scale of the Vision 2030 healthcare mandate and the depth of the company's network advantage are the variables that have no North American precedent.

How to Access Tadawul-Listed Equities

Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the Qualified Foreign Investor framework, North American investors can access Tadawul-listed equities directly. The main routes are through international brokerages with Saudi market execution capabilities, regional brokers with Tadawul access, or through ETFs tracking the MSCI Saudi Arabia Index. Investors should note that Tadawul operates Sunday through Thursday, settling trades on a T+2 basis, and that the SAR is pegged to the USD at 3.75.

Tadawul Trading Hours

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletters Here:

Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) Weekly Update | Week 2

Saudi Market Monitor — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:52:33 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

At a Glance

The index closed its second straight positive week at 1,018.65, adding 0.96% after last week's 0.9% opener, pushing the cumulative return since the August 10 launch to 1.9%. The week was not a smooth ride either, as the BCSI opened the week under pressure and touched lows near 993 on Tuesday before recovering steadily through the back half of the week, driven by strong constituent news and a strong bid for the energy and resource sector as gold and oil prices both surged. Against the Saudi benchmarks, the index outperformed for a second consecutive week. Comparatively, the TASI gained 0.61% to close at 10,954.46, the iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF added 0.71%, and the Nomu fell 1.18%, extending its year-to-date drawdown to 8.3%.

What Moved the Index

The week’s story was concentrated around the exploration end of the portfolio, with Peako Limited (ASX: PKO, 0.5% weight) having the most impact. Shareholders approved all nine resolutions putforth during a August 17 general meeting by margins of approximately ~99% or better in favor, clearing the last major governance hurdle for the transaction that converts Peako into a pure-play Saudi gold explorer across 862km² of Central Arabian Shield. The stock re-rated sharply on the outcome, now sitting 85.8% above its August 10 base price and up 57.1% on the week. The weight is modest, but the move itself framed the week’s tone for the index’s exploration cohort.

Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX, 1.8% weight) extended its run, increasing 15% on the week to close 29.6% above its launch-day base. The catalyst was a surface sampling release on August 19 reporting rock chip grades to 15.8% copper and 5.83 g/t gold at As Safra, alongside the definition of a new undrilled 500-metre trend at the North Central Target that has never seen a drill hole. The results also expanded the As Safra Southeast target in both directions and enlarged the footprint of a recently discovered southern polymetallic system. Diales Group (AIM: DIAL, 1.1% weight) added 8.7% from its base on no company-specific news, while Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS, 13.5% weight) gained 6.3% on the back of a contract extension announced Monday morning.

The index’s two primary drags were familiar names. Energy Recovery (NASDAQ: ERII, 17.8% weight) extended its losses, losing 5.2% on the week. As the largest constituent by weight, ERII’s continued weakness cost the index meaningful ground; the pressure appeared macro-driven as rate-sensitive industrial names sold off in a week where the 30-year US Treasury yield touched its highest level since 2007. Kuya Silver (CSE: KUYA, 4.6% weight) fell 7.6% after reporting a net loss of $2.8M for the first half of 2026 and flagging that ramp-up costs and higher administrative expenses drove the shortfall.

News From Constituents

Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX) released new surface sampling results from its As Safra project in Saudi Arabia, returning grades up to 15.8% copper and 5.83 g/t gold. The results defined a new undrilled target at North Central and expanded two other priority areas, reinforcing the view that As Safra is a larger system than initially understood.

Royal Road Minerals (TSXV: RYR) reported new drilling results from its Hanash North prospect in Asir Province, with highlights including 9m at 4.01% zinc and 34.3 g/t silver. The shallow polymetallic system now extends over more than 350m of strike and remains open in multiple directions.

Perma-Pipe International Holdings (NASDAQ: PPIH) announced more than $67M in new orders for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, spanning Oil and Gas projects in both MENA and Canada alongside continued order flow at its new Ohio facility. The standout win was the company’s largest single leak detection contract in MENA to date, a higher-margin category the company has been deliberately building toward.

Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS) secured a 183-day vessel contract extension from a major Middle East national oil company, with two additional three-month options attached and backlog holding at $659M. The award reinforces the resilience of GMS’s charter-driven model in a week when spot-market shipping across the region was under significant strain.

Kuya Silver (CSE: KUYA) reported first-half 2026 results with revenue doubling year-over-year to $2.7M on stronger silver production and higher prices, while the net loss widened to $2.8M as ramp-up costs and overhead at Bethania increased. Cash of $25.5M provides a solid runway heading into a more active second half.

How Markets Held Up

On the Saudi side, the TASI gained 0.61% to close the week at 10,954.46 while the Nomu fell 1.18%, the parallel market extending its year-to-date underperformance. The dominant story was the continued deterioration of Saudi Arabia’s export situation: Houthi drones struck the Jazan refinery again during the window when it was supposed to restart, causing Aramco to handle September allocations to Asian term buyers on an ad hoc basis. Against that backdrop, the macro data offered genuine reassurance: inflation held at 1.8% for a third straight month, Moody’s affirmed the Aa3 stable outlook and described Saudi as a relative haven within the Gulf, and the CMA’s incoming chairman Mazen Al Sudairi arrived with markets pricing the prospect of a foreign ownership cap increase to 75%, which Morgan Stanley estimated could bring $4.3B in additional inflows if implemented before MSCI’s October price cutoff. Aramco and Maaden also signed a joint venture agreement to explore 182,000km² of Arabian Shield corridor for copper and critical minerals, a development that sits in geographic proximity to several BCSI constituents already active in the region.

In the western markets, the week was defined by a sharp bond selloff and a simultaneous surge in commodity prices, a combination that cut cleanly through the index’s constituents in opposite directions. The S&P 500 fell 1.43% and the Nasdaq dropped 2.05% as the 30-year US Treasury yield touched 5.31%, its highest level since 2007. Analysts framed the move as investors beginning to price US long-duration debt against fiscal sustainability rather than Fed policy expectations, repricing borrowing costs globally. Total US public debt crossed $40T for the first time during the week. Against that backdrop, gold surged 6.60% to approximately $4,670 per ounce and Brent crude added 6.10% to near $93.92, both logging a third consecutive weekly gain as Hormuz shipping volumes collapsed and Washington threatened its toughest-ever sanctions package against Iran. The commodity bid was the direct tailwind that carried the BCSI’s mining and offshore services names through the week, while ERII and other rate-sensitive industrials absorbed the pressure from the long end of the Treasury curve. The FTSE 100 was the outlier among major equity indices, gaining 0.62% as UK-listed metals miners rallied sharply, providing support for the index’s AIM-listed constituents.

What to Watch For This Week

The Aramco Jazan refinery restart remains the single most consequential operational event for Saudi export flows. Originally targeted for mid-August and revised to August 30, any further strikes on the facility or on Ras Tanura would be the most immediate variable for MENA order pipelines. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh speaks at the Jackson Hole symposium Friday, and the market is watching for the clearest signal yet on his framework, with particular attention to how he characterizes the bond market's repricing that pushed long yields to multi-decade highs. A hawkish tone cements further pressure on Energy Recovery and other rate-sensitive industrials; any dovish pivot introduces cross-currents. Sierra Nevada Gold is expected to publish the remaining Phase 1 drilling results from As Safra within the next two weeks, and management indicated Phase 2 targeting finalization is close behind. Peako's acquisition closing remains the company-specific milestone to watch after shareholders cleared the governance hurdle. Watch as Nvidia reports Wednesday, carrying outsized weight for sentiment across AI and technology trade globally, with potential read-through for data center infrastructure demand that sits behind several of the index's capital goods and engineering names.

We welcome suggestions from our reader network on companies we should consider for inclusion. If there is a name you think belongs in the index, we want to hear from you.

Find Our Latest Releases Below:

Purpose

Building Amidst the Conflict: The Kingdom's Critical Minerals Bet

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 15:18:01 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue

Social Corner: The World's Most Reliable Tourism Market Just Raised Its Standards

Saudi Arabia quietly updated the rulebook for one of the world’s largest annual hospitality operations this week. The Ministry of Tourism approved new classification standards and a violation schedule for accommodation facilities serving Hajj pilgrims, effective ahead of the 2027 season. Facilities in Makkah and Madinah will now be classified into economy and first-class categories, with multi-stage inspections covering licensing, pre-opening, and the operating period itself. Separately, the Kingdom clarified the terms of its one-year multiple-entry Umrah visa, which allows cumulative stays of up to 90 days but requires a new approved service package and permit for each visit.

The investor angle sits underneath the regulatory one. Saudi Arabia is targeting 150M annual visitors by 2030, with religious tourism among the most durable and scalable components of that goal. Tightening accommodation standards ahead of 2027 is the Kingdom signaling that Hajj hospitality is being brought into the same quality framework as the broader tourism buildout. For developers, operators, and hospitality groups active in Makkah and Madinah, the updated classification system is now the operating standard they will be licensed and inspected against.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia's headline inflation held at 1.8% in July, matching its June and May numbers, and marking three consecutive months of stability despite regional conflict and a Strait of Hormuz that has been functionally closed since February. Housing remains the primary driver, contributing 0.8% to the headline figure on the back of a 4.3% rise in actual rents. What is not in the number is as telling as what is: food prices rose only 1.5%, and two segments, furnishings and clothing, are actually deflating year-over-year. The resilience reflects a combination of alternative export routing, strategic reserves, and price monitoring, but the warning is already embedded in the data. Wholesale prices rose 5.0% year-over-year and producer prices climbed 8.5%, both accelerating from June. The gap between what producers are paying and what consumers are seeing at the checkout does not stay open indefinitely.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

Saudi Arabia's Bet on the American EV

Lucid Motors reported its second quarter results this week and the numbers remain difficult: a net loss of $1.26B against revenue of $405M, with losses widening year-over-year even as deliveries grew. The headline figures matter less than what sits underneath them for investors tracking the Saudi-North American capital relationship. Lucid is a NASDAQ-listed company whose survival and strategic direction are now almost entirely a function of decisions made in Riyadh. The PIF has injected $550M through its Ayar Third Investment vehicle this year alone, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal acquired a 5% stake for $129.5M this quarter, and the company’s manufacturing anchor is a facility in King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast. Lucid is not a Saudi company listed on the NASDAQ. It is a North American public company that has become a Saudi industrial project.

The operational reality reflects that dependency. Lucid’s King Abdullah Economic City plant is moving into industrialization with manufacturing systems being installed, but the facility remains reliant on imported components and a local supply chain that does not yet exist at scale. The company is explicitly watching whether PIF’s push to localize the automotive sector, including supply chain development from sister brand Ceer, can generate enough domestic suppliers to reduce its exposure to Red Sea freight disruptions. The $1.4B in planned cost cuts, the new CEO, and the AlixPartners engagement are all instruments of a restructuring whose success depends on what happens in the Kingdom’s industrial ecosystem and on what happens in the American EV market. For North American investors holding Lucid equity, the investment thesis is inseparable from Saudi Arabia’s ability to build an automotive supply chain, localize manufacturing, and keep capital flowing into a company that is burning through it faster than it is generating it.

News

Houthis Tighten the Squeeze on Saudi Export Routes

The pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil export infrastructure is not letting up. The Houthis struck Aramco’s Jazan refinery twice in a single week, with the second attack landing within the facility’s restart window after it was closed on July 27 following an earlier strike. Repairs had been expected to complete by mid to late August. A second supertanker was spotted at Ju’aymah in satellite imagery, the clearest sign yet that Aramco is pushing loadings back through the Gulf as the Houthi campaign makes the Red Sea bypass increasingly untenable. Saudi crude exports to the US fell to zero in July, the first full month without shipments since 1985, as both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea alternative became commercially unworkable. The commercial damage is now showing up in Aramco’s order book: the company is handling September allocations on an ad hoc basis, abandoning the standard monthly pricing cadence, while four Chinese buyers have received no September allocation at all. Aramco is now offering cargoes out of Egypt’s Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean, which Asian buyers are so far declining given the longer voyage and higher freight costs.

CMA gets a New Chairman as IPO Scrutiny Intensifies

Mazen Al Sudairi has been appointed chairman of the Capital Market Authority (CMA), replacing Mohammed Al Quwaiz, who had led the regulator since 2017. Al Sudairi comes from a capital markets research background, having previously led research at Al Rajhi before moving to an advisory role at the Cabinet General Secretariat in 2024. The appointment lands as the CMA is reportedly investigating the weak post-listing performance of recent IPOs and scrutinizing the advice investment banks gave to companies on pricing and allocation. Saudi companies raised $3.7B through share sales in 2025, more than the rest of the Gulf combined, while nearly 100 companies are currently in the listing queue. No major IPOs have closed so far this year. The new chairman inherits a market where the TASI closed July down 1.95% and trading volume nearly halved year-over-year. The combination of thin liquidity, a full IPO pipeline, and an active regulatory investigation into recent deal quality is the environment Al Sudairi walks into on day one.

Saudi Arabia Mandates 70% Saudization for Project Management Roles

Project management directors, engineers, and specialists will be subject to a 70% Saudization requirement from February 14, 2027, following a decision by the Ministry of Human Resources in partnership with the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing. The measure follows a series of recent localization requirements introduced across procurement, tourism, marketing, and dental professions. Saudi unemployment among citizens has fallen from 12.3% in 2016 to 7.2% in 2025, just above the Vision 2030 target of 7%, and the rolling expansion of Saudization requirements is part of the mechanism keeping that trajectory on track. For international firms operating project management functions in the Kingdom, February 2027 is the compliance deadline and the talent sourcing challenge it implies is immediate.

Gulf Patience with Washington is Wearing Thin

Gulf capitals are increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration’s stop-start approach to the Iran situation, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain now united in their aggravation, the Washington Post reported this week. The president has repeatedly issued threats against Tehran before walking them back, and some Gulf governments have begun debating the value of continuing to host large US military installations. The economic bill of the uncertainty is becoming visible: the conferences, summits, and Formula One races that pack the Gulf’s October to December calendar are in question. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) in late October is the first real test, with senior global executives and officials unsure whether to commit to Riyadh with the conflict unresolved. For investors, the FII’s format and attendance will be one of the clearest near-term signals of how the international capital community is reading Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical moment.

Deal Watch

Qassim Cement Secures a SAR 400M Credit Facility

Qassim Cement signed a SAR 400M financing agreement with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF) to support the launch of a fourth production line and the replacement of older units at its Buraydah facility. The nine-year facility includes a two-year grace period followed by seven years of repayments and will be combined with additional Shariah-compliant bank financing. The company previously awarded a $298M EPC contract to Sinoma International for the new line, which carries a daily capacity of 10,000 tons. The financing confirms the project is moving from contract award to funded execution, relevant in the context of Saudi Arabia’s ongoing construction activity across Vision 2030 infrastructure and housing programs.

Almosafer Eyes 2026 Tadawul Listing

Almosafer, the travel platform majority-owned by Seera Group, plans to list on the Tadawul before the end of 2026, CEO Muzzammil Ahussain confirmed this week. The offering will involve the sale of existing shares by current shareholders rather than a capital raise, meaning proceeds flow to Seera rather than into Almosafer’s balance sheet. The final timing has not been set and the company is monitoring market conditions before committing to a date. The planned listing adds to a Tadawul IPO pipeline that currently sits at nearly 100 companies awaiting approval, against a backdrop where no major listings have closed so far this year and the CMA is actively investigating post-listing performance of recent deals. Almosafer reported record revenue and EBITDA in the first half, driven by a Hajj and Umrah business that posted its strongest quarter ever.

Pinnacle Launches Saudi Venture Capital Fund

Pinnacle Capital launched a venture capital fund targeting growth-stage companies and secondary transactions in the Kingdom. The fund will invest through both primary funding rounds and secondary market activity, focusing on technology companies across fintech, housing, mobility, real estate, urban services, e-commerce, health, and lifestyle. Fund size and participating investors have not been disclosed. The launch adds to a domestic venture ecosystem that has seen SAR 360M raised by Growth Catalyst Investment Management in June and continued deployment into early-stage GCC funds. A functioning secondary market for Saudi tech equity is still nascent, and a fund explicitly targeting that layer alongside primary rounds is a structural addition to the ecosystem rather than just another growth vehicle.

Spotlight: Saudi Arabia’s Next Resource - The Kingdom's $2.5T Mining Bet

Saudi Arabia has spent seventy years becoming the world’s most important oil exporter. It is now attempting something considerably harder: becoming a meaningful player in the metals that the energy transition depends on. The Aramco-Maaden joint venture announced this week is the most consequential step in that attempt.

The deal pairs two of the Kingdom’s most consequential state-owned enterprises across 182,000 square kilometres of terrain that neither has previously explored in a coordinated way. Maaden brings the mining expertise and the track record, having built one of the largest single-jurisdiction exploration programs in the world across the Arabian Shield over the past two decades. Aramco brings something rarer: ninety years of geological and geophysical data accumulated while drilling for oil across the Arabian Platform, data that has never been systematically applied to mineral exploration. The JV’s stated intention is to use artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and that legacy dataset to compress the timeline from regional screening to exploration target identification. In a sector where the average deposit takes sixteen years from discovery to production, any credible reduction in that timeline is commercially significant.

The target area is Zone 4, a roughly 100-kilometre-wide corridor running parallel to the Arabian Shield across the Arabian Platform. It covers approximately 10% of Saudi Arabia’s total landmass and has seen almost no systematic hard-rock exploration. The primary target is copper, alongside zinc, lead, and rare-earth elements. Copper accounts for more than 20% of the $1.2T mined-metals market, is priced at around $250B globally today, and is projected to exceed $400B by 2035 as electrification accelerates demand from power grids, EVs, renewable energy infrastructure, and energy storage. The Kingdom’s mineral resource estimate has already been revised upward to $2.5T from $1.3T, though that figure represents geological potential rather than bankable reserves.

The exploration ecosystem around the JV tells the broader story. Active exploration companies in Saudi Arabia grew from six in 2020 to 226 in 2024. Exploration spending jumped from $54M in 2023 to $236M in 2025. Valid mining licenses exceeded 2,900 in 2025. A few of the constituents tracked in our own index, the Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI), sit directly inside this wave: Sun Peak Metals holds 1,070 square kilometres across thirteen licenses with Saudi Arabia as its only active jurisdiction; Sierra Nevada Gold just confirmed a high-grade gold and silver discovery at As Safra with a 5.5 kilometre mineralised corridor mostly untested; KEFI Gold and Copper holds a 13% stake in a 3.8M ounce gold-equivalent resource across 16 licences; Power Metallic Mines is operator of a 200 square kilometre licence in the Jabal Sayid belt. The Aramco-Maaden JV operates in a different part of the country and at a different scale, but it is drawing from the same geological thesis and the same government-backed framework that brought those companies into the Kingdom in the first place.

Saudi Arabia’s mining ambitions extend well beyond extraction. The Kingdom is targeting significant expansion in smelting and refining, with the strategic location and east-west trade infrastructure to make downstream processing credible in a way that many resource-rich nations cannot. Copper’s role as an input for cables, electrical equipment, renewable energy components, and EV manufacturing connects the mining program directly to the industrial ecosystem that Vision 2030 is building around it. Rare earths, if discovered in commercial quantities, connect to permanent magnets for wind turbines and EV inputs, which is where the global technology supply chain is most contested right now.

The headwinds are real and worth naming. A typical deposit takes sixteen years from discovery to production. Chinese overcapacity in copper processing has pushed treatment and refining negative over the past eighteen months, compressing the economics for new entrants. The $2.5T resource estimate is a geological figure, not a project valuation, and the gap between the two requires successful exploration, feasibility studies, infrastructure investment, and processing capacity that does not yet exist at scale in the Kingdom. The JV has not disclosed its planned investment level.

What the Aramco-Maaden deal does is convert a government aspiration into a structured, funded, two-institution commitment with a defined exploration area and a technology-led methodology. It does not guarantee discovery. It does make discovery significantly more likely than it would have been without it, and it signals to every junior explorer operating in the Kingdom that the upstream institutions are now aligned behind the same thesis they are pursuing at much smaller scale.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Company Spotlight and Index Update Here:

Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) Weekly Update | Week 1

Saudi Market Monitor — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:56:18 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Purpose

At a Glance

The Index closed its inaugural week at 1,008.96, up 0.9% since launching at a base of 1,000 on August 10. The index spent most of the week in negative territory before a strong Friday session drove a recovery. Against the Saudi benchmarks, the BCSI outperformed across the board. The TASI closed the week up 0.09% while the Nomu fell 0.97%, and the iShares MSCI Saudi Arabia ETF gained 0.57% for the week. The BCSI's slight positive return against a flat-to-negative Saudi market reflects the index's different composition, globally listed companies with Saudi exposure rather than direct Tadawul names, and the broader macro tailwinds that lifted North American and Australian equity markets mid-week.

What Moved the Index

The three strongest performers were Peako Limited (ASX: PKO, 0.3% weight) at +17.0%, Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX, 1.5% weight) at +8.1% on the back of a significant drilling result at its Saudi project, and Diales Group (AIM: DIAL, 1.1% weight) at +6.5%. Power Metallic Mines (TSXV: PNPN) deserves a separate mention: it gained 6.3% but carries a 10.5% weight, making it one of the more meaningful contributors to the index’s Friday recovery.

On the downside, Energy Recovery (NASDAQ: ERII, 18.9% weight) was the week’s defining story. It fell sharply mid-week with no company-specific news attached, touching -10.1% before recovering to close down 4.0% on the week. Given its position as the index’s largest constituent, ERII’s moves will reliably drive index-level swings until the portfolio becomes more evenly distributed over time. Sun Peak Metals (TSXV: PEAK, 2.1% weight) fell 7.7% and KEFI Gold and Copper (AIM: KEFI, 10.0% weight) dropped 3.6%.

News From Constituents

Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX) released its first meaningful drilling results from the As Safra project in Saudi Arabia this week, confirming the discovery of a new zone of high-grade gold and silver mineralization beneath shallow surface cover. The significance is that it demonstrates that the project is larger and more complex than initially understood, with multiple distinct types of mineralization now identified across a nearly 6 kilometre corridor that remains mostly untested by drilling. Management described the find as consistent with a large-scale mineral district, which is the kind of language that tends to move junior exploration stocks. Phase 2 drilling of more than 25,000 metres is planned.

Peako Limited (ASX: PKO) held its shareholder meeting earlier today and passed all nine resolutions put to shareholders, each by margins of approximately 99% or better in favor. The votes approved the issuance of shares and performance rights to complete the Saudi acquisition, ratified the placement shares issued to fund it, and approved equity incentives for directors and advisers. The clean sweep means the transaction that converts Peako from a junior explorer with Australian assets into a company whose entire investment case is built around its 862 km² Saudi gold portfolio is now formally approved by shareholders. The closing of the acquisition is the next milestone to watch.

How Markets Held Up

On the Saudi side, the TASI closed the week up 0.09% at 10,823.60 while the Nomu fell 0.97%, both markets navigating a heavy week of geopolitical and corporate news. The week's dominant development was the signing of the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on August 9, binding all three to treat an armed attack on any member as an attack on all. On the corporate side, Q2 earnings painted a clear picture of a market under geopolitical strain: Acwa Power's net income fell 36% year-over-year as regional conflict slowed project milestones and reduced development revenue, Arabian Drilling swung to a net loss as rig utilization fell to 72%, and media company MBC Group posted a SAR 263M net loss as advertising demand collapsed. The few bright spots were Tamara Finance, which reported a 118% jump in Q2 net income, and Savola Group, the only major name to grow net income in the quarter.

The PIF released its 2026-2030 strategy on Thursday, formally shifting from direct capital deployment toward private-sector crowding-in and capital recycling across six named domestic ecosystems. A separate Alvarez and Marsal report estimated the Saudi data center buildout requires between $24B and $42B in project capital through 2030, with current installed capacity at 410 MW against a 1 GW target, a figure that frames the infrastructure mandate sitting behind several BCSI constituents.

In the western markets where the BCSI’s constituents are listed, the macro backdrop was broadly constructive for much of the week. In Canada, the TSX gained 1.05% and the TSXV added 0.89%, with mining and materials names lifted by gold’s continued strength. Gold closed the week at $4,429.70, up 2.05%, driven by a US jobs shock that pulled September Fed hike odds from above 50% to roughly 34% after July CPI came in at 3.4% and wholesale inflation also decelerated. That move in rate expectations provided a direct tailwind for the index’s gold and silver-exposed mining names on the TSXV and ASX. In the US, the S&P 500 gained 0.44% and the Nasdaq added 0.18%, both supported by the same inflation data. In the UK, the FTSE 100 fell 1.38% as the mining sector led declines and put pressure on AIM-listed names. The Australian central bank held rates at 4.35% while signalling it may need to hike again if inflation risks materialise, keeping a cautious tone over the ASX. On oil, Brent closed around $88.47 on Friday, down roughly 6% from prior-week highs. That swing mattered most for the energy names in the index, though Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS) and Seacor Marine Holdings (NYSE: SMHI) held positive on the week given their charter-driven revenue model.

What to Watch For This Week

Aramco's Jazan refinery restart is targeted for August 30, and any escalation in Houthi activity against Red Sea shipping or Saudi port infrastructure remains the most immediate variable for GMS and SMHI. The August 19 US tariff deadline on Canadian goods is the macro event most likely to move TSXV and CSE names if talks break down.

We welcome suggestions from our reader network on companies we should consider for inclusion. If there is a name you think belongs in the index, we want to hear from you.

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SMM Company Spotlight: Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

Saudi Market Monitor — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:49:25 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Purpose

English-language coverage of individual Tadawul and Nomu-listed companies is limited. Most investors tracking Saudi Arabia's transformation can name Saudi Aramco, but the carriers, miners, industrials, and consumer names being built to support a $1.8 trillion economy in transition rarely recieve the analytical treatment they deserve for a North American audience. The SMM Company Spotlight exists to close that gap. Alongside our main bi-weekly newsletter covering newsflow in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, each week we will select one Saudi-listed company, break down its business model, financials, governance, and Vision 2030 positioning, and translate it into terms a North American investor can digest.

We cover names across all sectors and exchanges. If there is a company or sector you would like us to feature, reach out. We welcome suggestions from our reader network.

Saudi Telecom Company (Tadawul:7010)

Inside this Issue:

The Vision 2030 Connection

STC sits at the center of Saudi Arabia’s digital infrastructure ambition across three Vision 2030 verticals: making the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector a meaningfully larger share of the country’s GDP, positioning the Kingdom as a regional AI and cloud hub, and building the national connectivity backbone that every other Vision 2030 sector runs on. The company holds a 72% revenue market share in the Kingdom’s telecommunications market and signed a SAR 32.6B contract with a government entity in 2025 to build, operate, and deliver national telecom infrastructure over a 15-year operating period. It is not a beneficiary of Vision 2030; it is the primary vehicle for it.

The central risk is execution complexity across simultaneous capital-intensive verticals. STC is simultaneously managing a commercial telecoms business, a hyperscale data center platform, a digital bank, a cybersecurity unit, and a cloud services company, each competing for capital. The government infrastructure contract begins generating revenue only in Q4 2026, meaning the financial payoff builds gradually against commitments that are already on the books.

The Business

STC (Tadawul: 7010) is Saudi Arabia’s largest telecommunications company and the dominant ICT services provider in the Kingdom, holding a 72% revenue market share. The core business serves approximately 30M mobile subscribers and 6M fixed subscribers in KSA, generating SAR 77.8B in group revenue in FY2025. Beyond connectivity, STC operates through subsidiaries covering enterprise IT (Solutions), hyperscale data centers and subsea cables (Center3), cybersecurity (Sirar), cloud computing (SCCC by STC), IoT (IoT Squared), device retail (Channels), digital banking (STC Bank), and mission-critical communications (Specialized).

Revenue from the core KSA business contributes approximately SAR 51B before inter-segment eliminations, with Channels and Solutions the largest subsidiaries at SAR 14B and SAR 12.7B respectively. STC Bank generated SAR 1.4B in its first full year of commercial operation and surpassed 8M customers. Group EBITDA reached SAR 24.5B in FY2025 at a 31.4% margin, consistent with incumbent carrier economics in a market that has seen no meaningful price competition.

The business model is transitioning from a traditional incumbent telecoms operator toward an integrated digital and infrastructure group. Center3, its hyperscale data center subsidiary, is targeting 1 GW of total capacity by 2030 with SAR 37.5B in planned investment, anchored by a joint venture with HUMAIN, PIF’s full-stack AI subsidiary, for an initial 250 MW AI data center deployment. The SAR 32.6B government infrastructure contract, executed through Specialized, locks in a 15-year sovereign revenue stream and confirms STC’s role as the Kingdom’s digital backbone is now a contractual obligation, not just a strategic aspiration.

Governance and Ownership

The company was established by Royal Decree in 1998 and listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) in 2002. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) holds 62% of the company’s shares, with the remaining 38% publicly available as free float across approximately 5B ordinary shares. The Board of Directors comprises of 11 members with independent directors in the majority, including international telecoms and technology executives. The company operates under a dividend policy committing to a minimum of SAR 0.55 per share per quarter through Q3 2027, with total cash distributions in FY2025 exceeding SAR 21B, including a SAR 2 per share special dividend declared in addition to the quarterly minimum. STC carries A+ credit ratings from both Fitch and S&P and Aa3 from Moody’s, reflecting its structural position in the Saudi Arabian economy and the sovereign ownership underpinning it.

Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the Qualified Foreign Investor framework, STC shares are directly accessible to all categories of North American investors without structural barriers.

At a Glance

The North American Lens

For Canadian investors, STC maps most directly onto the Rogers or Bell Canada framework: an incumbent carrier with dominant network ownership that has spent years diversifying into enterprise IT, financial services, and digital infrastructure. The difference is that Rogers and Bell executed that diversification in a mature market. STC is executing the same playbook in an economy of 35M people at the early stages of a government-mandated digital buildout, with a 15-year government contract and a PIF-backed joint venture that no North American carrier has a comparable instrument to cite.

The AT&T parallel adds context on the sovereign relationship. AT&T’s FirstNet federal contract created a long-duration, government-backed revenue stream that changed its network investment risk profile. The STC infrastructure contract plays the same structural role, with one critical distinction: STC faces no credible competitor for the same sovereign mandate and enters it with a 72% revenue market share already in place.

The most structurally similar listed company in the region is E&, the UAE-headquartered incumbent listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX). Like STC, E& is majority government-owned, operates in a Gulf market with limited domestic competition, and has spent the past several years building an enterprise digital and fintech layer on top of its core telecoms base. What distinguishes STC from E& is the concentration of the opportunity: a single market undergoing the most ambitious state-directed economic transformation program in the Gulf, with a sovereign contract that converts that transformation into a direct revenue stream.

On valuation, STC trades at a meaningful premium to its North American and Gulf peers, at 8.1x EV/EBITDA against a peer range of 5.0x to 6.8x. The Canadian incumbents, Rogers and Bell, both sit at approximately 5.0x, reflecting mature market dynamics and limited growth optionality, while AT&T and E& trade at 5.8x and 6.8x respectively. STC's premium over E& is the most instructive gap: both are majority government-owned Gulf incumbents pursuing the same digital diversification strategy, but STC carries a sovereign infrastructure contract and a data center expansion program that E& has no direct equivalent to. Whether the premium is justified depends almost entirely on execution against the commitments already on the books, particularly the Q4 2026 revenue recognition start date on infrastructure contract and the Center3 capacity ramp.

The STC Bank and Center3 subsidiaries do not map cleanly onto North American peers, and that is part of the investment case rather than a complication. STC Bank surpassed 8M customers in its first year of commercial operation, driven by STC’s existing mobile subscriber base, at a pace most North American digital banks would require three to five years to reach. Center3 is the only hyperscale provider in the Kingdom at a moment when AI infrastructure demand is outpacing regional supply. The Rogers and Bell frameworks give Canadian investors the right vocabulary for STC’s business model; the Vision 2030 tailwind has no North American precedent.

What to Watch

The SAR 32.6B government infrastructure contract begins revenue recognition in Q4 2026; whether the ramp tracks management’s projections is the single most important variable in the medium-term investment case.
Center3 hyperscaler occupancy and bookings momentum against the SAR 37.5B expansion plan, alongside power supply availability, which STC’s own risk team flags as a material emerging constraint globally.
Dividend sustainability: FY2025 distributions exceeded SAR 21B against SAR 18.3B in operating cash flow. The committed quarterly minimum of SAR 0.55 per share runs through Q3 2027 alongside significant capital requirements elsewhere on the balance sheet.
STC Bank unit economics: 8M customers is the headline, but loan book credit quality and the pace of capital injections from the parent will signal whether the payback timeline is tracking as planned.

The Bottom Line

STC is the most direct listed vehicle on the Tadawul for investors seeking exposure to Saudi Arabia's digital infrastructure buildout across all its layers simultaneously: a near-monopoly telecoms operator, a data center platform co-invested with the PIF, a 15-year sovereign infrastructure contract, and a digital bank with 8M customers in its first year. For North American investors who understand the Rogers and Bell capital frameworks, STC's business model is immediately readable; the scale of the Vision 2030 tailwind and the depth of the sovereign relationship are the variables that have no North American precedent.

How to Access Tadawul-Listed Equities

Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the Qualified Foreign Investor framework, North American investors can access Tadawul-listed equities directly. The main routes are through international brokerages with Saudi market execution capabilities, regional brokers with Tadawul access, or ETFs tracking the MSCI Saudi Arabia Index. Investors should note that Tadawul operates Sunday through Thursday, settling trades on a T+2 basis, and that the SAR is pegged to the USD at 3.75.

Tadawul Trading Hours

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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Welcoming The Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI)

Saudi Market Monitor — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:36:29 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Purpose

What It Tracks

The Blink Capital Saudi Index (BCSI) is a market-cap weighted index of globally listed companies with tangible, verified exposure to Saudi Arabia’s economic opening, built for the North American investor. Constituents are selected based on direct exposure to the Kingdom: disclosed Saudi revenue, a granted exploration licence, an operating Saudi subsidiary or asset, Vision 2030 contracts and more, creating material exposure to the transforming Saudi Arabian economy. Memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, and pending applications do not qualify; inclusion requires something that has already happened, evidenced in a company’s own filings. Each constituent is verified against primary sources such as annual reports, 10-K and 20-F filings, regulatory announcements and press releases.

The index currently tracks 16 companies across energy, industrials, materials and mining, software, and transportation. By count, materials dominate, reflecting the pace of Saudi Arabia’s mineral licensing rounds. By index weight, the industrial and energy service firms already invoicing Aramco and its contractors anchor the index. Listings span major developed-market exchanges like the NASDAQ, NYSE, TSX Venture, CSE, ASX, LSE, AIM, and Euronext Paris, making constituents accessible through a standard international brokerage account. This is a micro-cap and small-cap index by construction, not by accident. Aggregate market capitalisation is approximately $2.2B across 16 constituents, with the largest around $450M and the median around $90M.

How It Is Built

The BCSI is market-cap weighted, rebased to 1,000 points. Weights float with price and the index is chained close-to-close so constituent changes do not restate history. The index is reviewed continuously and rebalanced on evidence, not on a calendar, with constituents being added when pending exposure vests and removed when it lapses, is divested, or proves immaterial. Readers should treat the BCSI as a thematic tracker, not a diversified portfolio. The BCSI goes live Monday, August 10, with weekly performance updates published every Monday.

Company List

Materials
Sun Peak Metals (TSXV: PEAK)
Peako Limited (ASX: PKO)
Sierra Nevada Gold (ASX: SNX)
Royal Road Minerals (TSXV: RYR)
KEFI Gold and Copper (AIM: KEFI)
Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies (ENXTPA: ALHGR)
Kuya Silver (CNSX: KUYA)
Power Metallic Mines (TSXV: PNPN)

Energy
OMS Energy Technologies (NASDAQ: OMSE)
Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS)
SEACOR Marine Holdings (NYSE: SMHI)

Capital Goods
Perma-Pipe International Holdings (NASDAQ: PPIH)
Energy Recovery (NASDAQ: ERII)
Diales Group (AIM: DIAL)

Software and Services
NTG Clarity Networks (TSXV: NCI)

Transportation
Swvl Holdings (NASDAQ: SWVL)

We welcome suggestions from our reader network on companies we should consider for inclusion. If there is a name you think belongs in the index, we want to hear from you.

Read Our Latest Company Spotlight Here:

The Kingdom Holds Its Ground

Saudi Market Monitor — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:02:22 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue

Social Corner: Saudi Arabia's Conference Calendar Signals Where the Investment Conversations are Heading

While the regional conflict dominates the headlines, Saudi Arabia’s institutional event calendar for the second half of 2026 tells a different story about where the Kingdom’s economic ambitions are pointed. The Global AI Summit returns to Riyadh in September, hosted at King Abdulaziz International Convention Center, bringing together governments, technology firms, and investors to shape AI governance and deployment at a moment when Saudi is among the most active builders of AI infrastructure. The Summit follows the LEAP Tech Conference later in September, and precedes the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in October, one of the most attended gatherings of global capital in the world. The World Travel Market (WTM) spotlights Riyadh in September, adding a tourism angle directly relevant to the 150M annual visitor target under Vision 2030.

The depth of the calendar matters as much as the individual events. A country hosting the Global AI Summit, the Future Investment Initiative, and the WTM in successive months is not positioning itself as a regional player. It is positioning itself as a venue for decisions that shape global capital flows, technology standards, and infrastructure investment. For North American investors, these events are worth tracking not for the announcements they produce, but for the mandates they tend to unlock in the months that follow.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia's non-oil economy grew through the worst oil shock the Kingdom has faced since the pandemic. Real GDP contracted 4.8% year-over-year in Q2 2026 as oil activities plunged 24.7% following the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, subtracting 5.4 percentage points from headline growth. Strip oil out entirely and the economy still expanded. Non-oil GDP grew 0.6% year-over-year in Q2, down sharply from 2.9% in Q1 and 4.6% in Q4 2025, but positive. The Kingdom remains one of only two Gulf states, alongside Oman, expected to post non-oil growth this year. For Vision 2030's central thesis, Saudi Arabia can build a productive economy capable of generating its own returns independent of crude. The Q2 data is the first real stress test of that thesis under live conflict conditions, and it held.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

The PIF Closes the Largest Leveraged Buyout in History

The Public Investment Fund’s (PIF) $55B acquisition of Electronic Arts (EA) closed this week, the largest leveraged buyout in history. The deal was structured through a consortium of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, with PIF rolling over its existing 9.9% stake and the group deploying approximately $36.4B in equity alongside $20B in fully underwritten debt from JPMorgan. “Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF, and are among the fastest growing and evolving sectors around the world,” said Turqi Alnowaiser, PIF’s Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments.

For North American investors, the EA acquisition is worth understanding beyond the headline size. It is the clearest expression yet of the PIF’s pivot toward global operating assets with durable cash flows and brand equity, different from the passive equity positions the fund spent the prior decade building before gradually reducing them. The PIF’s US-listed portfolio peaked at $56.7B across 36 positions in 2021 and has since been cut to four names totaling approximately $12B. Capital rotated out of public equities is now going into structures like this one: control positions in large, cash-generative businesses where PIF can influence strategy, not just collect dividends. For Canadian and US institutional investors watching how sovereign capital from the Gulf is being deployed, EA is the clearest signal yet of where that strategy is heading.

News

Houthis Escalate Red Sea Campaign as Both Corridors Remain Under Pressure

Yemen's Houthis claimed strikes on two Saudi oil tankers this week: one off the coast of Yanbu and another in the Gulf of Aden, and threatened to escalate targeting of Saudi oil tankers to close all access points and prevent their passage. The campaign has progressively moved from targeting Israel-linked shipping to Saudi infrastructure directly, with the group previously striking Aramco facilities at Jazan and Yanbu in late July and declaring a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20. Six Saudi-flagged supertankers operated by Bahri have since rerouted around Africa rather than transiting Bab Al Mandeb, adding at least 25 days to voyages that would otherwise use the Suez Canal. The Kingdom is pursuing diplomatic talks with the Houthis through Omani mediators while keeping military options on the table. The single most important variable for Saudi oil exports and fiscal performance remains whether a durable agreement emerges from the current US-Iran negotiations.

OPEC+ Approves Sixth Consecutive Output Hike

OPEC+ approved an additional 188,000 bpd of output for September, marking the bloc’s sixth consecutive monthly increase and fully rolling back the 1.65M bpd in voluntary cuts agreed in 2023. Saudi Arabia will contribute 62,000 bpd of the increase, raising its required production level to approximately 10.5M bpd for September. Despite rising quotas, actual output remains well below pre-war levels, with May production at 33.1M bpd against pre-conflict levels above 42M bpd. The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee separately expressed concern over ongoing attacks on energy infrastructure, noting that costly repairs threaten global supply stability. The increased quota and the reality of what can actually be exported remain two very different numbers for now.

Saudi Arabia Assembles a 43-Country Maritime Alliance

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry announced a new multinational maritime defense alliance following a meeting with representatives of 43 countries and an EU delegation in Riyadh. The coalition aims to protect freedom of navigation, secure international trade routes and energy supplies, and defend maritime interests across Bab Al Mandeb, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. Current signatories include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, among others. The alliance will be headquartered in Riyadh, with a joint maritime operations center and general secretariat based in the Kingdom. Members will coordinate through intelligence sharing and joint patrols, though no formal military commitments have been made yet. The formation signals that Saudi Arabia intends to anchor Red Sea security itself rather than relying entirely on Western naval forces, a strategy that has direct implications for the Kingdom’s alternative oil export corridor.

Saudi Crown Prince Urges Trump to Stand Down as Iran Deal Takes Shape

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly urged US President Donald Trump in a phone call to avoid strikes that could reignite the conflict, according to Axios. Trump announced shortly after that planned strikes on Iran had been called off, provided the two parties reach an agreement rapidly. He claimed the parameters of a deal had been established, covering the complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear program. Overnight, Iran reached an agreement with Oman on a Hormuz proposal, though the arrangement would give Iran control over ships passing through the strait, a condition the US has previously said it would not accept. Trump later confirmed negotiations are continuing, with Oman and Qatar playing mediating roles. A deal is closer than at any point since February, but the gap remains the critical variable for Saudi oil exports, fiscal revenues, and the broader regional outlook this year.

Deal Watch

Humain Backs Its First Saudi Company

PIF-owned Humain made its first investment in a Saudi business this week, partnering with Riyadh-based AI firm Mozn on AI infrastructure and enterprise tools. Humain will provide investment and compute capacity to support Mozn’s next-generation solutions, with the two companies committing to collaborate on financial services and government applications. The move marks a strategic evolution for Humain, going from compute partnerships with foreign firms like Cohere, Accenture and McKinsey toward anchoring the domestic Saudi AI ecosystem directly. Mozn manages a corporate portfolio of solutions already deployed across financial institutions in the Kingdom, giving Humain an immediate foothold in one of the leading verticals in Vision 2030’s digital transformation agenda.

DataVolt Targets Non-Recourse Financing for Saudi Data Centers

Data center developer DataVolt is targeting non-recourse project financing for all of its under-construction Saudi facilities within six months, CEO Rajit Nanda told AGBI. This structure is rare for multi-tenant data centers but was successfully applied by DataVolt in June when it reached financial close on $150M of 12-year non-recourse debt for a 12 MW facility in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. If applied in Saudi Arabia, the model would shift DataVolt’s $5B Kingdom commitment from large upfront equity deployment to recurring project-level payments, a structure that opens the financing to a broader pool of infrastructure lenders. The Saudi pipeline includes a 1.5 GW data center at Neom’s Oxagon and a $500M facility in Riyadh East.

Rime Closes $2M Seed Round

Saudi AI startup Rime secured over $2M in a seed round led by Seedra Ventures, with participation from Athlah Investment, Unity Invest Partners, and several angel investors. Founded in 2024, Rime provides AI tools for businesses operating physical sites, using cameras and sensors to analyze activity and make real-time decisions. Its platform is already deployed across 2,000 sites in the GCC, primarily for retail and service companies. The funding will support Saudi expansion and development of its proprietary technology platform for enterprise AI applications.

Spotlight: The Kingdom Holds Its Ground, Earnings, and the Economy That Conflict Could Not Stop

The most important thing to understand about Saudi Arabia’s Q2 2026 is the gap between what the headline GDP number says and what the corporate earnings season is actually showing. Real GDP contracted 4.8% year-on-year, the steepest decline since the pandemic. Strip out oil and the picture is different: non-oil GDP still grew, the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) held at 53.1 for a fourth consecutive month of expansion, consumer spending held on rising wages and job creation, and a list of Saudi corporates reported results that had nothing to do with the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has 35 million people, a diversifying economy, and a consumer base that keeps spending. The war is real, but its economic footprint is concentrated.

Aramco is where the two stories collide most visibly. The company posted its highest net income since 2022, with adjusted net income rising 33% year-on-year to $33.4B, beating the $31.6B consensus, not because it pumped more oil but because the war that strangled its volumes also lifted its realized crude price to $108.1 per barrel. Oil revenues to the government rose 22% in Q2 on the back of those prices, cutting the quarterly deficit to its smallest in nearly two years. Aramco’s CEO, Amin H. Nasser, argued that even a full Hormuz reopening today would take up to 18 months to rebuild depleted inventories, meaning the price environment that produced this quarter does not simply evaporate on a deal announcement. The windfall has already partially unwound as crude slid below $80 on Hormuz reopening signals, but the structural inventory argument gives Aramco a floor that a single MoU cannot remove.

The non-oil earnings season tells the same story from the other direction. Nahdi Medical, Saudi Arabia’s largest pharmacy and healthcare chain, reported revenue growth of 5.8% year-on-year to SAR 2.7B in Q2, with healthcare revenue jumping 36.9% and regional expansion revenue up 24.6%. The dip in net income was entirely a function of deliberate investment spending in those same growth segments, not demand weakness. Analysts left their price targets and revenue estimates unchanged, a signal that the investment thesis is intact. SAL Saudi Logistics posted an 18% year-on-year rise in net income to SAR 191.4M, with revenue up 30%, as cargo volumes recovered and the company expanded its logistics and warehousing footprint. It also closed the acquisition of Belgium’s Aviapartner Liege this week, marking its first operational presence outside Saudi Arabia and its first step toward becoming a global logistics operator. Makkah Construction swung sharply higher on Hajj season hospitality and retail performance. Even Flynas held up better than the headline loss suggests. The carrier posted a Q2 net loss of SAR 240.6M on revenue of SAR 2.2B, with unit fares up 22% year-on-year as industry-wide capacity cuts let carriers push prices into the disruption. The war's impact showed up most plainly in the fuel bill: jet fuel costs rose 86% year-on-year to SAR 838M as prices more than doubled. The pattern across sectors is the same: companies serving Saudi Arabia’s 35 million people and the economy’s growing segments are holding up because the demand driving them is structural, not oil-price dependent.

The TASI’s July performance reflects the conflict’s real effect on the market rather than on the economy beneath it. The index closed down just 1.95%, a decline that looks calm until you see that share volume nearly halved to 4.55B from 8.6B a year earlier while turnover fell roughly 20% year-on-year. The missing volume is the signal. Retail stepped back first, domestic institutions de-risked deliberately, and qualified foreign investors had the least reason to sit through a Gulf war. A market trading on a fraction of its usual volume cannot reprice a live conflict in the three or four sessions between the worst headlines and the close. The distinction surrounding the Yanbu terminal helped support the index: the late-July strikes hit the Jazan refinery complex, not the loading infrastructure itself. A strike on the terminal would have produced a different number.

The picture that emerges across GDP, Aramco, corporate earnings, and the TASI is a single consistent thesis: Saudi Arabia’s oil economy absorbed the worst downturn since the pandemic, its corporate economy kept growing through it, and its capital markets thinned rather than broke. For investors building Saudi exposure, the question is not whether the Kingdom is managing the conflict. The question is when the market’s trading volume returns to reflect what the earnings are actually showing.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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SMM Company Spotlight: Flynas Company

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:43:11 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Purpose

English-language coverage of individual Tadawul and Nomu-listed companies is thin. Most investors tracking Saudi Arabia's transformation can name Aramco, but the carriers, miners, industrials, and consumer names that are supporting a $1.8 trillion economy in transition rarely receive the analytical treatment they deserve for a North American audience. The SMM Company Spotlight exists to close that gap. Alongside our main bi-weekly newsletter covering economic and socioeconomic news in Saudi Arabia, we will begin handpicking select Saudi-listed companies, breaking down their business models, financials, governance, and Vision 2030 positioning, and translating it into terms North American investors can download. We will cover names across all sectors in the Kingdom.

If there is a company or sector you would like us to feature, reach out. We welcome suggestions from our reader network.

The JetBlue/WestJet of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Independent Low-Cost Challenger

Inside this Issue:

The Vision 2030 Connection

Flynas sits at the intersection of three Vision 2030 verticals: 330M annual passengers, 150M tourists annually, and Riyadh as a global aviation hub. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) in 2023 held approximately a 39% share of Saudi domestic aviation, and Vision 2030 targets this number reaching 44%. The plan is to service 100M passengers annually with this business model, and Flynas is the primary vehicle for that shift.

The risk is competition and sequencing. Riyadh Air, the new PIF-backed full-service carrier, entered the Riyadh-Jeddah corridor in June 2025, Flynas’s most valuable domestic route, with an aggressive posture. The countervailing factor is that Saudi domestic travel demand is driven by the Kingdom’s population of 36M, not inbound tourism, providing a stable demand floor.

The Business

Flynas (Tadawul: 4264) is Saudi Arabia’s largest LCC and the Kingdom’s only independent airline, holding a 23% domestic market share. Operating from four hubs, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and Madinah, across 80+ destinations in 38 countries, it runs a classic LCC model: high seat density, unbundled ancillary revenue, and point-to-point routes that avoid full-service complexity.

Revenue breaks into three segments: core LCC operations at 90.4%, Hajj and Umrah services at 7.5%, and General Aviation at 2.2%. The religious travel segment is what makes Flynas structurally unlike any North American carrier; tens of millions of pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia annually on a recurring, economically inelastic basis. No competitor can replicate that demand floor quickly.

The fleet is the company’s most important strategic asset. The airline possesses an average aircraft age of 4.1 years across an all-Airbus narrow-body fleet as of Q12026. With a cumulative orderbook of 235 planes, Flynas is signaling a clear ambition to move from regional routes into long-haul international travel, a trajectory no Gulf LCC has completed before.

Governance and Ownership

Flynas is majority-owned by National Air Services, with Kingdom Holding, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s listed investment vehicle, holding a minority stake. The June 2025 IPO offered a 30% free float and drew SAR 409B in institutional orders, nearly 100-times oversubscribed, with strong international participation. BSF Capital led the offering with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Al Rajhi Capital, Citi, ANB Capital, and Emirates NBD Capital as bookrunners.

It was the first airline listing on the Tadawul and the first Gulf airline IPO since 2007. Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the Qualified Foreign Investor (QFI) framework, Flynas shares are now directly accessible to all categories of North American investors without structural barriers.

At a Glance

The North American Lens

For Canadian investors, Flynas maps directly onto the early WestJet story. WestJet entered a market dominated by Air Canada, built domestically first, expanded selectively, and grew into a credible challenger without mimicking the full-service model. Flynas is following the same playbook in a market where Saudia plays the Air Canada role. The difference is scale: Canada’s aviation market was already mature when WestJet launched, and Saudi Arabia is in the early stages of a government-mandated expansion of its aviation sector.

The JetBlue comparison in the table below adds texture on the product side. Flynas is not a bare-bones ultra-budget carrier; it operates a hybrid LCC model with a Premium Class cabin, a loyalty program, and a customer experience that sits closer to JetBlue’s original “low-cost but not low-service” proposition. That positioning matters in a market where the primary domestic competitor is a legacy flag carrier, not another LCC.

Air Arabia and Jazeera Airways are the most direct regional peers, both Gulf-based LCCs operating in structurally similar high-growth markets. Flynas’s EBITDA margin of 32.1% compares favorably to both, reflecting the Hajj and Umrah revenue premium and domestic market scale that neither regional peer has to the same degree. Also included are JetBlue and Southwest Airlines, two US carriers included for business model and mature market context.

What to Watch

Riyadh Air competition on the Riyadh-Jeddah corridor, the single most important near-term variable for yield and load factor.
Wide-body fleet deployment: when and where Flynas assigns its recent orders of 15 wide-body Airbus will signal whether management is ready to execute the long-haul transition.
Ancillary revenue per passenger currently sits below mature market LCC benchmarks; closing that gap is the clearest internal lever for margin expansion.
Hormuz and fuel costs: a renewed strait closure would compress margins faster than domestic pricing flexibility could absorb.

The Bottom Line

Flynas is a direct play on one of the most structurally compelling growth stories in global aviation, a government-mandated, demographically supported expansion of a severely underpenetrated market, with a recurring religious travel demand base that no competitor can replicate and no economic cycle can fully disrupt. For North American investors who understand the WestJet and JetBlue playbooks, Flynas is the most direct listed vehicle to own that thesis on the Tadawul today.

How to Access Tadawul-Listed Equities

Following the CMA’s February 2026 removal of the QFI framework, North American investors can access Tadawul-listed equities directly. The main routes are through international brokerages with Saudi market execution capabilities, regional brokers with Tadawul access, or through ETFs tracking the MSCI Saudi Arabia Index. Investors should note that Tadawul operates Sunday through Thursday, settling trades on a T+2 basis, and that the SAR is pegged to the USD at 3.75.

Tadawul Trading Hours

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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Regional Turbulence Puts Saudi Arabia to the Test

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:54:37 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue

Social Corner: Saudi’s Homeownership Rate Approaches Crown Prince’s Target of 70%

Saudi Arabia’s homeownership rate climbed from 47% in 2016 to 66% by the end of 2025, closing in on the Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 goal of 70%. Minister of Municipalities and Housing, Majed Al-Hogail, attended the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on the Urban Agenda in New York. More than 25% of Saudi families benefited from housing support services between 2018 and 2025, while public space per capita rose from 5.2 to 6.9 square meters over the same period.

The financing side of the urban transformation is worth noting for investors. Saudi Arabia issued USD 9.1B in green bonds and sustainable sukuk in 2024, and the PIF’s green finance framework carries commitments exceeding USD 10B by 2026. The Kingdom has also signed more than 56 public-private partnership agreements supporting infrastructure and municipal services, and formalized a strategic cooperation agreement with UN-Habitat and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 2024 to 2027. Al-Hogail reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s commitment to expanding sustainable financing and strengthening international cooperation on urban development, a signal that the capital structure behind the housing push is being built to last well beyond 2030.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia rose to 13th place among the world’s largest recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2025, up from 17th in 2024, according to the UN’s World Investment Report. Net FDI inflows reached USD 32.6B, up 53% from USD 21.3B in 2024, with total inward FDI stock rising to USD 293.3B. The UN attributed the performance to sustained investment across energy, infrastructure, technology, advanced industries, and logistics. Against a Vision 2030 target of USD 100B annually, the gap remains significant, however the ranking improvement and a 53% increase in net FDI inflows year-over-year reflect a pace of improvement that few economies in the world matched in 2025.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) Brings in ‘I Squared’ for USD 2B Infrastructure Play

The PIF signed a non-binding MoU with I Squared Capital, the New York-headquartered global infrastructure investment manager, to deploy up to USD 2B across real estate and infrastructure assets held by the PIF and its portfolio companies. The agreement targets up to USD 1B each in digital infrastructure and district cooling, with room to expand into adjacent areas as specific transactions are identified.

For North American investors, the I Squared partnership is worth tracking. The fund’s 2030 plan now prioritizes pulling in co-investors with operating expertise alongside their capital, rather than funding projects directly off the PIF’s own balance sheet. That shift is being driven by a widening fiscal deficit and a new project mandate, the same dynamic behind the Neom pullback, the Saudi Pro League club sales, and the Roshn equity raise for the Aramco Stadium. I Squared is not a passive allocator; the firm manages over USD 40B across energy, utilities, telecom, and transportation globally, and its involvement suggests the PIF is looking for partners who can run assets, not just write cheques. For Canadian and US pension funds and investment managers watching Saudi Arabia’s buildout, this is the kind of structure that tends to open further access over time.

News

The Houthis Declare a Naval Blockade on Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia this week, targeting the Bab Al Mandeb strait at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, the Kingdom’s oil escape route. Since Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz in late February, Saudi Arabia has been routing crude to Yanbu, with Red Sea loadings climbing from roughly 1.1M bpd in February to more than 4M bpd by March. For the first time in the conflict, both of Saudi Arabia’s exits are under simultaneous threat. A full closure could remove an additional 7% of global oil supply on top of the roughly 10% already lost, and war risk premiums for vessels spiked to around 0.75% of vessel value immediately after the announcement, up from 0.3% the prior week. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry denied the Houthis’ characterization, stating the Kingdom has actively supported Yemen through financial aid and humanitarian shipping.

Saudi Growth Forecast Cut as Hormuz Keeps Pressure On

Saudi Arabia remains one of just two Gulf economies projected to grow in 2026, but the forecast has been cut to 1.4% from 2.6% three months ago according to a Reuters economist poll, with the IMF’s own projection at 1.7%, down from 3.1% in April. Saudi inflation held at 1.8% in June, well below Canada’s 2.8% and the US’s 3.5%, reflecting the Kingdom’s relative insulation from global price pressures. This resilience has come down to geography, with the East-West pipeline routing crude around Hormuz to the Red Sea, but that workaround is now directly threatened by the blockade. Kuwait and Qatar, both fully Hormuz-dependent, are each projected to contract 8.1%, while economists see a 6.0% Saudi rebound in 2027, but only if both waterways normalize.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former US Ambassador to the Kingdom, Michael Ratney, framed the broader stakes: Saudi Arabia spent hundreds of billions building a post-oil economy on the assumption of regional stability, and never wanted this war. The near-term cost is real, but Ratney argues the conflict may ironically accelerate the push into renewables, alternative pipelines, and rail routes that the transformation agenda already required.

Neom Quietly Rewrites Its Public Pitch

Neom overhauled its website, stripping out the futuristic renders and sweeping promises that defined The Line’s original marketing and replacing them with more restrained language on delivery and commercial viability. References to housing 9M people, operating without roads or cars, and running entirely on renewables no longer appear on The Line’s page. The project is now described as a core component of a phased, demand-led approach. Sindalah lost its standalone section, and Magna’s page no longer lists the 15 boutique hotels it once showcased. Neom said the changes are routine digital platform updates and do not signal any change to the long-term vision. What survives the rewrite is the port, the data centers, the green hydrogen plant, and the USD 8.4B JV between Neom, ACWA Power, and Air Products, which is in final equipment installation with first green ammonia expected in 2027.

Government Tightens the Belt

Saudi government entities have been instructed to cut non-essential expenditures by as much as 50%, and education allowances previously paid to some government employees will not be renewed next year. New hiring has been paused in several departments until further notice, while travel allowances have been reduced, and non-essential business travel restricted. The cuts are targeting discretionary and operational spending across ministries, while strategic projects and capital investment in gigaprojects remain largely unaffected. The move follows a budget deficit of USD 74B in 2025, more than double what the government had originally projected, as lower and more volatile oil prices squeezed revenues while spending continued to rise. The spending controls predate the current regional conflict and were introduced as part of a broader fiscal management effort. For companies that depend on government procurement, travel budgets, or discretionary ministry spending, the tightening is expected to weigh on activity over the coming months.

IPO Watch

Ladun Takes Another Run at TASI

Ladun Investment Company, the Nomu-listed investment firm, submitted its application to transfer to the Tadawul main market, targeting completion in Q3. This is Ladun’s second attempt, as the company pulled its initial application late last year, less than a month after filing, due to incomplete regulatory requirements.

NourNet Eyes Tadawul Listing with Goldman and HSBC

Saudi IT infrastructure provider NourNet, majority-owned by Investcorp Holdings, is working with Goldman Sachs and HSBC on a potential Tadawul listing that could happen this year, Bloomberg reported. The mandate reflects a broader pattern: institutional-grade names are moving toward the main market with top-tier mandates even as broader regional listing activity has fallen to a five-year low.

BSF Capital Sees H2 Recovery in Saudi IPO Activity

BSF Capital expects Saudi IPO activity to improve in H2 2026, supported by a recovering equity market and a backlog of issuers that delayed plans during the conflict period.

Spotlight: Geopolitics Is Splitting Saudi Corporate Earnings Down the Middle

Saudi Arabia’s Q2 2026 earnings season is shaping up as a direct read on how the regional conflict is sorting winners from losers across the corporate landscape. Shipping disruptions, travel restrictions, and oil price volatility result in divergence that cuts across almost every sector, according to Riyad Capital’s Q2 earnings preview.

Banks are the clearest beneficiaries. Sector net income is forecast to rise 6% year-over-year to SAR 21.6B, supported by 10% growth in fee and commission income, 7% in financing, and 8% in deposits. Al Rajhi is expected to top the group with a 14% year-on-year rise in net income to SAR 7B. Albilad is forecast to post the fastest financing growth at around 14%. The financial sector’s insulation from the physical disruptions hitting logistics and aviation is showing up directly in the numbers.

Petrochemicals are still in the red but narrowing their losses. The sector’s aggregate net loss is expected to shrink to SAR 936M from SAR 3.6B a year earlier. Two names stand out on the upside: Yansab, with net income projected to surge 419% year-over-year to SAR 231M, and Saudi Industrial Investment Group (SIIG), expected to reach SAR 143M from SAR 20M. Saudi Basic Industries Company (SABIC) is still forecast to lose SAR 308M, a significant improvement from a SAR 4.1B loss in Q2 2025 but a reminder that the sector has not cleared the structural headwinds from higher feedstock costs and disrupted shipping lanes.

Energy and utilities are among the winners. The majority of companies in Riyad Capital’s coverage are expected to post net income growth ranging from 11% to 26% year-over-year. Saudi Electricity Company is the largest contributor at SAR 3.8B, up 24% year-over-year, while Marafiq posted the fastest growth at 26%. The exception is Arabian Drilling, expected to slip to a SAR 42M loss after offshore rig suspensions that loomed over the industry.

Transportation is taking the hardest hit with Flynas expected to be the weakest performer in the sector, with an anticipated SAR 298.8M loss on lower operating capacity and higher fuel costs. Lumi, Budget Saudi, and Theeb are all projected to also report lower bottom lines. SAL Saudi Logistics is the one bright spot, with net income expected to grow 7% year-on-year to SAR 174.1M on higher cargo volumes and improved pricing. For context, the transportation sector as a whole is forecast to end the quarter in positive territory after recording a SAR 515M loss in Q2 2025, but that improvement is largely mechanical, driven by the prior year’s weak base rather than operational strength across the board.

Telecoms look soft on paper but the comparison is misleading. Net income is projected to decline 4% year-over-year to SAR 4.6B, largely because Saudi Telecom’s (STC) results from last year included a one-off favorable zakat and tax impact that inflated the base. Strip that out and earnings would be up. STC itself is expected to report an 8% year-over-year decline in net income to SAR 3.5B for the same reason. Mobily has already reported, posting Q2 net income of SAR 901M, up 8.6% year-on-year, with revenue jumping 5.2% to SAR 5.08B.

The picture that emerges is not one of broad deterioration. It is a sector-by-sector sorting along a single fault line: exposure to the physical disruptions of the conflict, versus insulation from them. Banks and utilities are on one side. Aviation and petrochemicals are on the other. For investors building or adjusting Saudi exposure, Q2 earnings are the first real data point on which business models are holding up and which are still absorbing the shock.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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SMM Special Edition: Canada and Saudi Arabia Open a New Chapter

Saudi Market Monitor — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:18:19 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue

Social Corner: Prime Minister Mark Carney Lands in Jeddah

The first Canadian Prime Minister to visit Saudi Arabia in 26 years just signed over $1B in deals on July 9. Mark Carney’s visit to Jeddah this week was not a diplomatic gesture. It was the operational expression of a relationship that has been quietly rebuilding since 2023 and is now moving fast enough to warrant a visit from the Prime Minister, a bilateral signing ceremony, and a commitment to bring Canada’s largest pension funds to Saudi Arabia before the year is out.

The Canadian delegation was substantial and deliberately composed. Carney was joined by Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, Defence Minister David McGuinty, Canada’s ambassador, and the head of Canada’s Defence Investment Agency Doug Guzman. On the Saudi side, the meetings ran at the highest level as Carney sat down with PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Ma’aden CEO Bob Wilt, HUMAIN leadership, and Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser before meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a bilateral lunch at the royal palace. Saudi Investment Minister Fahad Al-Saif described Canada as “a trusted long-term partner” and framed Saudi capital explicitly as “patient capital”, the language institutional investors use when they mean long-horizon, low-turnover allocations.

“We barely scratched the potential of the relationship.” — Prime Minister Mark Carney, Jeddah, July 9, 2026

The Deals: $1B+ Across Several Sectors

Canada and Saudi Arabia signed 13 commercial agreements and MOUs worth over $1B CAD, spanning critical minerals, mining, clean energy, health technology, infrastructure, AI, and defence. Canadian engineering firms AtkinsRéalis and Hatch were among the signatories. AtkinsRéalis, with deep involvement in NEOM, Diriyah, and the Riyadh Metro, is now formalizing the Saudi relationship at the highest level of bilateral engagement between the two nations.

The deal structure reflects where each country’s comparative advantage actually sits:

Mining and critical minerals: Canadian firms set to support exploration and clean energy projects in Saudi Arabia, with 5 of the 15 projects submitted to Canada’s Major Projects Office related to the Kingdom in this category
Infrastructure: Canadian companies to help deliver Vision 2030 developments including roads and rail
Health technology: Canadian firms to deploy patient monitoring, clinical decision-support, and surgical intelligence platforms
Education and workforce: Canadian colleges to train Saudi workers across construction, skilled trades, medicine, and technology
Energy: A dedicated MOU covering liquefied natural gas (LNG), renewables, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage
AI: A separate MOU advancing collaboration in development, deployment, and commercialization
Defence: Canada committed to finalizing a defence cooperation MOU and will establish a resident Defence Attaché presence in Riyadh, a permanent institutional footprint that did not exist before this week

Two additional corporate partnerships were announced alongside the main package. Canadian AI company Cohere and Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN agreed to a strategic AI compute collaboration under which HUMAIN will dedicate at least 50 megawatts of compute capacity to Cohere’s next-generation foundation models. BlackBerry and Aramco Digital have also commenced discussions on sovereign secure communications and next-generation industrial technology.

"Canada is a trusted long-term partner." — Fahad Al-Saif, Saudi Investment Minister

What This Means for Investors

The diplomatic backdrop is as important as the commercial one. Canada and Saudi Arabia are targeting a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement by early 2027 and have launched negotiations on a double-taxation agreement. Finance Minister Champagne will lead a delegation of Canada’s largest pension funds to Saudi Arabia in the coming months to explore long-term investment opportunities in energy and AI. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund confirmed it will attend the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto in September. Canada will participate in Expo 2030 in Riyadh and have a national pavilion at the World Defence Show in January 2028. These are not aspirational statements. They are sequenced commitments with named timelines, named institutional counterparts, and named ministers attached to execution.

For North American investors tracking Saudi capital markets, three things stand out.

Canada’s pension funds are coming. Canada’s eight-largest pension funds, including the likes of Canada Pension Plan (CPP), who is expected to lead, along with Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) and more, collectively manage over $2.5T in assets and are among the most sophisticated long-horizon institutional investors in the world. A Finance Minister-led delegation is not a scouting trip, but a signal that allocations are being seriously evaluated across energy, AI infrastructure, and mining, with further discussions to be had at the first-ever Canada Investment Summit taking place in September.

The AI corridor just got a named, sized deal. Cohere is one of the most credible Canadian AI companies globally, and 50 megawatts of dedicated HUMAIN compute is a real commitment, not just a letter of intent. This gives the Saudi AI infrastructure buildout a Canadian anchor that did not exist a week ago.

Mining is the thread that runs through everything. Saudi Investment Minister Al-Saif specifically flagged infrastructure, aviation, and critical minerals as the sectors where he sees Canadian expertise adding the most value. Canada-Saudi Business Council chair Jeff Steiner said the Kingdom is “making mining their second pillar”, language that maps directly onto Vision 2030’s stated goal of making mining the third pillar of The Kingdom’s economy.

The Backdrop

The human element of the visit is worth acknowledging. The relationship between Canada and Saudi Arabia collapsed in 2018 after then-foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland publicly criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, triggering a diplomatic rupture that lasted five years. Saudi Arabia expelled Canada’s ambassador, suspended trade and investment ties, and recalled thousands of Saudi students. The two countries began restoring relations in 2023. Carney’s visit marks the culmination of that reconciliation and a deliberate repositioning of Canadian foreign policy toward engagement over criticism.

“Lecturing countries from afar is an ineffective strategy. It’s satisfying, but it’s ineffective. Engagement can be effective.” — Prime Minister Mark Carney

Foreign Affairs Minister Anand held her own bilateral with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, where she commented on the current state of the region and the relationship between the two nations. The US-Iran ceasefire collapsed earlier this week, with Trump declaring it “over” and US strikes on Iran resuming overnight. Carney and the delegates pressed ahead regardless. That decision, and the fact that the Crown Prince made time for a full bilateral meeting and lunch at the royal palace during an active crisis, says something about how seriously both sides are treating this relationship.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

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Saudi Market Monitor Marks One Year; PIF Doubles Its Bottom Line, Oil Prices Dive, and Foreign Capital Keeps Flowing In

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:56:27 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue

Financial Corner: Wall Street's Riyadh Buildout Is Accelerating

The past week produced two more data points in what is becoming one of the clearest trends in global finance. HSBC hired three senior bankers into its Saudi Arabia Capital Markets and Advisory team: an M&A director from Goldman Sachs, an ECM director from HSBC Continental Europe, and a new head of Leveraged and Acquisition Finance relocated from Singapore, covering the full core of an investment banking operation. A few days later, Deutsche Bank secured a regional headquarters licence in Riyadh, its third legal entity in the Kingdom, joining JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley on the Saudi Headquarters Program (RHQ) roster and gaining access to major government and state-linked contracts in the process.

These are not isolated moves. Saudi Arabia has made clear that multinationals without a Riyadh headquarters risk losing access to state contracts, a policy that has pulled over 675 companies into the Kingdom since the RHQ program launched. For financial institutions, the calculus is simple: deal flow has become too active and too large to manage from Dubai or London. This builds directly on Brookfield and Neuberger Berman receiving their CMA licences two weeks ago. The roster of globally significant institutions now with full operational infrastructure in Riyadh would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Saudi FDI reached $33 billion in 2025, up roughly 50% from 2024, against a Vision 2030 target of $100 billion annually by 2030. The gap is still significant, but the institutions building the pipes to close it are no longer watching from the sidelines.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia is taking its seat at the table on AI governance. On July 6 and 7, the Kingdom participated in the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, held on the sidelines of the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. The delegation was led by Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Al-Swaha, alongside the President of the Saudi Data and AI Authority, a member of the UN High-Level Advisory Body on AI, and representatives of the Human Rights Commission and the King Abdulaziz Center for Cultural Communication.
The participation was not ceremonial. Saudi Arabia has spent the past two years building sovereign compute infrastructure through HUMAIN, investing $3B into xAI, and introducing a nationwide AI curriculum across six million students. Being in Geneva to help shape the rules of responsible AI, equitable access, and international cooperation is the logical next step for a country that has already committed capital and policy to becoming a global AI hub. The Kingdom that is building the pipes now wants a say in how the system gets governed.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

A Canadian Junior Is Structuring Its Way Into Saudi Mining

SKRR Exploration Inc. (TSXV: SKRR) is a Saskatchewan-focused precious and base metal explorer that has been quietly building a vehicle for Saudi Arabian mining exposure over the past year. The mechanism is a proposed reverse takeover of Kenz Global Resources Ltd., a private British Columbia company that, through its Saudi subsidiaries, holds a 45% ownership interest in the Miskah Project, 12 exploration licenses in Saudi Arabia over which Kenz has been designated exclusive operator by the Saudi Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources.

The deal has been in progress since July 2025 and has now been extended for the third time, with the new outside date set at August 30, 2026. The latest amendment also updates the principal property, the Miskah Project replaces the AM ARTI Property as the primary asset, and reflects an active negotiation to acquire a further 6% interest in Miskah, which would bring Kenz’s stake to 51% with an option to acquire an additional 4% over 36 months. Kenz also holds a 63% interest in the AM ARTI Property through a separate set of pending exploration licenses, giving the resulting issuer coverage across two Saudi exploration blocks. SKRR shares remain halted pending exchange review.

This section has covered the Saudi mining opening across multiple editions. Power Metallic’s Jabal Baudan license, its JV with Amaar Mining, and its subsequent C$30M raise to fund the work program. The common thread across all of them is the same structure: a Canadian-listed vehicle brings technical credibility and capital markets access, while the Saudi-side entity contributes local regulatory standing and operational designation. What makes the SKRR-Kenz transaction different is the operator designation itself. Kenz is not a passive minority holder. It has been given exclusive operational control over the Miskah Project by the Ministry, the kind of mandate that takes years to establish and cannot simply be replicated by a new entrant writing a bigger cheque.

For North American investors, SKRR represents ground-floor exposure to a specific and well-documented thesis: Saudi Arabia is systematically opening its mineral licensing regime. Mining is being positioned as the third pillar of the national economy under Vision 2030, and the window for Canadian juniors to build meaningful positions through structures that align with local regulatory requirements is open right now. The companies getting in early, with the right local partnerships and the right operational credentials, are the ones best placed to benefit when the sector scales.

Ticker: SKRR (TSXV) | HQ: Vancouver, BC | Saudi Asset: Miskah Project (45%, operator-designated) + AM ARTI Property (63%) | Structure: Proposed RTO of Kenz Global Resources

News

Aramco Slashes Arab Crude Price by Largest Margin in 26 Years

Saudi Aramco cut Arab Light crude’s official selling price for Asian buyers in August by $11 per barrel to $1.50 below the regional benchmark, selling at a discount for the first time since the 2020 price war, and the largest single monthly reduction in official selling prices since at least 2000. The cuts for European buyers were even steeper at $15 per barrel, with US supplies reduced by $8.

The interim US-Iran deal has released a wave of trapped Gulf crude onto global markets at the same time that wartime workarounds remain partly in place, creating a supply overhang that is forcing producers to compete for buyers. Asian crude buyers told Bloomberg that even after the cuts, Saudi prices remain more expensive than spot supplies from other regional producers, suggesting further reductions could follow. One analyst called it “a function of Hormuz’s messy normalization” rather than the start of a price war. China placed orders for at least 26M barrels from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Iraq for July and August delivery as it moves to replenish stocks depleted during the conflict. While it is a bullish signal, a full rebound in Chinese crude demand depends on Beijing lifting informal export restrictions on refined products that are currently capping how much raw crude the country can absorb.

OPEC+ Approves Fifth Consecutive Output Increase

OPEC+ approved another 188,000 barrels per day of additional output for August, the fifth consecutive monthly increase as the alliance continues unwinding its 2023 voluntary production cuts. Actual production remains below pre-war levels, with output at 33.13M bpd in May against pre-conflict levels above 42M bpd. At the current pace of quarterly increases, the remaining 379,000 bpd of voluntary cuts could be fully restored by end of September. OPEC also trimmed its 2026 global oil demand growth forecast to 1M bpd from 1.2M bpd.

Foreign Real Estate Rulebook Published

The executive regulation governing non-Saudi property ownership was published in Saudi Arabia’s Official Gazette over the weekend, providing the full operational framework for a law that has been in effect since January. The headline fee is 2% on disposals of real estate rights in Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, and Jeddah, set at the lower end of the 5% ceiling the law permitted, though it stacks on top of the existing 5% real estate transaction tax. Outside the four cities, the disposal fee is zero.

A non-resident individual buyer now has a concrete checklist: an Interior Ministry digital identity, a local bank account, and a Saudi phone number linked to that identity. Foreign companies must register with the Investment Ministry, disclose all direct and indirect owners, maintain a Saudi-issued legal representative, and report any ownership change of 5% or more within 15 days. Everything runs through a single Real Estate General Authority (REGA)-operated electronic portal linked to the national property registry. Misrepresentation carries a fine of up to 5% of the property’s value, capped at SAR 10M, plus a forced sale.

IPO Watch

MSGA Nomu IPO Allocation Confirmed

Riyadh-based residential developer MSGA Investment recently resumed its listing and began trading today as the firm closed on its Nomu parallel market subscription 144.6% covered, pricing at SAR 6.00 ($1.60) per share and implying a post-listing market cap of SAR 667M ($177.9M). The company posted SAR 61.9M ($16.5M) in net income for 2025, up nearly sixfold from the year prior. Allocation was confirmed June 28. Yaqeen Capital acted as financial advisor and lead manager.

Arabian Romoz Files for Nomu

Saudi real estate developer Arabian Romoz Company received CMA approval to register and offer 950,000 shares representing 11.95% of its share capital on the Nomu parallel market. The company is a Riyadh-based real estate developer focused on residential and commercial projects across the Kingdom, with operations tied directly to Saudi Arabia’s ongoing housing expansion agenda, a market the government estimates still needs approximately 830,000 additional units by 2034. Pricing and timeline details expected to be announced once the CMA registration process is complete.

Arabian Romoz’s filing arrives in the same month that MSGA Investment commenced trading on Nomu, and follows the CMA’s earlier approval of Al Manhal Company’s 900,000-share offering on the parallel market. Taken together, the three names reinforce the same point: while the main market window remains largely shut for larger deals, Nomu is quietly rebuilding its pipeline around real estate developers and smaller-cap issuers that can price at disciplined valuations and find domestic books without needing foreign institutional participation. For investors tracking Saudi capital markets, that is a meaningful signal about where the next wave of listings is actually coming from.

Spotlight: PIF’s Strongest Year on Record, and Why the Context Matters More Than the Numbers

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund published its independently audited 2025 financial statements last week, and the headline figures are significant. Net income more than doubled, rising 152.4% year-on-year to SAR 65.2B while revenue grew 8.8% to SAR 449.9B. Furthermore, operating profit climbed 125% and Assets under management (AUM) reached SAR 4.54T, clearing the SAR 4T target for 2025.

The composition of the earnings matters as much as the size. The lift was not driven by a windfall in dividends as dividend income actually fell from SAR 84B to SAR 65.3B. The gains came from fair-value changes in financial instruments, which nearly doubled, income from fair-value changes in managed funds, which rose to SAR 29.1B, and earnings from associates and joint ventures, which more than tripled to reach SAR 9.8B.

On the operating revenue side, banking and financial services led at SAR 85.3B, followed by telecoms at SAR 76.8B and mining at SAR 38.8B. Agriculture and livestock more than tripled to SAR 7.6B, a sector most investors do not associate with PIF at all, but one that reflects the food security investments that have been running quietly in the background for years.

The balance sheet tells a more complete story. Cash rose to SAR 354.4B from SAR 315.9B, Investment properties climbed 23% to SAR 80.5B, Investments in associates and joint ventures grew to SAR 212.8B from SAR 196.9B. That is not a distress signal, but one that reflects PIF’s deliberate use of leverage as a financing tool as it scales, and it is worth tracking as the fund’s capital deployment ambitions grow.

Geographically, MENA remains the largest slice of the securities portfolio at SAR 1.29T, though it fell 11.5% year on year as capital was redeployed domestically. North America grew 27.6% to SAR 547B, and Europe grew 7.2% to SAR 167.6B.

What makes these numbers strategically significant is the context they land in. PIF is simultaneously rephasing its gigaproject portfolio, absorbing an $8B Neom write-down, and navigating a Kingdom-wide budget deficit that came in at more than double initial projections in 2025. A fund that more than doubles its net income while absorbing those pressures is demonstrating something important about the breadth and resilience of what sits underneath the headline projects.

Vision 2030’s financial logic has always depended on PIF generating its own returns rather than being permanently subsidized by oil revenues. The 2026–2030 strategy made that explicit, shifting the mandate toward financial returns, local champions, and capital discipline over scale and acceleration. These results are the clearest evidence yet that the underlying portfolio can support that pivot. The fund does not need oil at $110 to double its net income. That is the number that matters most for any investor trying to understand where Saudi Arabia’s sovereign capital story goes next.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletter Here:

Deal is Signed, and Saudi Arabia Eyes a 2027 Rebound

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:43:57 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner: World Cup Campaign Begins

Saudi Arabia’s Green Falcons opened their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign on Monday night in Miami with a 1-1 draw against Uruguay, and the result felt bigger than the scoreline. Defender Abdulelah Al-Amri headed the Kingdom in front in the 40th minute, stunning a Uruguayan side that controlled 67% of possession, the highest ever recorded against Saudi Arabia in World Cup history. Uruguay’s 22 second-half shots eventually lead to a goal, with Maxi Araújo tapping in a rebound in the 79th minute to level. Goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais was the story of the second half, producing save after save to keep Uruguay at bay. The Kingdom that will host this tournament in 2034 is already showing it belongs in it.

Did You Know??

Approximately one in three Saudi businesses was using AI technology in 2025. The national adoption rate reached 33.1%, up 20% year-over-year and the fastest growing digital tool category tracked by the General Authority for Statistics. The headline masks a significant concentration effect. Adoption clears 50% only in finance and insurance, information services, and education, while manufacturing sits at 30.7% and wholesale and retail at 30.2%. The sectors that have moved fastest are the ones with the clearest productivity case and the resources to act on it. The gap between those two groups is where Vision 2030’s next productivity push will have to do its work, and where the most interesting investment opportunities are likely to emerge over the next several years.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

Brookfield and Neuberger Recieve Their Saudi Licenses

Amid months of regional conflict and elevated geopolitical uncertainty, two of the world’s most significant asset managers made a deliberate decision: they planted their flags in Riyadh. The Capital Market Authority (CMA) granted licences to Brookfield Arabia for Business Services, the local arm of Brookfield Asset Management, and Neuberger Berman Saudi Investment, the local arm of New York-based Neuberger Berman, to manage investments and operate funds in the Kingdom. Both firms can now begin fully licensed onshore operations.

Brookfield manages over $1T in assets globally across real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy, and private equity. Neuberger Berman manages approximately $550B with deep institutional fixed income and private markets franchises. These are not exploratory moves by firms testing the waters. Obtaining a CMA licence requires a material commitment of local hiring, regulatory engagement, legal infrastructure, and reputational capital. Both firms made that commitment during an active regional conflict, not after it has been resolved. They join a roster that already includes BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Ashmore Group, and Investcorp. When institutions of that calibre are building onshore infrastructure in Riyadh during the most uncertain backdrop in a generation, the message about long-term conviction in the Saudi capital markets story is difficult to misread.

News

The Strait is Opening

On June 14, US President Donald Trump announced that a peace agreement with Iran was complete and that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. The US and Iran subsequently signed a memorandum of understanding, with Iran’s side indicating the waterway would reopen within 30 days. The UK, France, Germany, and Italy signalled readiness to lift sanctions on Iran in connection with its nuclear commitments. By Sunday, one LNG tanker that had been stuck in the Gulf for months was already making its way toward the strait.

The market reaction was immediate. Brent crude has now dropped to the $80s, falling from above $90 for much of 2026 as the war risk premium unwinds. For Saudi Arabia, the ceasefire cuts in both directions. The disruption to Gulf rivals that gave the East-West pipeline its strategic advantage starts to narrow as Hormuz reopens. The deal still has significant details to resolve, including sanctions relief, Iran’s nuclear program, and the operational mechanics of the strait reopening. Markets may be pricing the best-case scenario. But the direction is clear, and the oil market has already moved decisively.

RiyadAir: New Dreamliners, Routes, and a Domestic Launch

Riyadh Air marked several milestones in the span of two weeks that collectively signal that ambitions are moving from plan to reality. The airline took delivery of its first three Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on June 5 and June 7, the first in a planned fleet of 72. On June 11, it completed its first commercial international flight to London Heathrow, brought forward from an original July 1 schedule. Four days later, it launched its first domestic route between Riyadh and Jeddah, entering the world’s fifth busiest domestic corridor with two daily flights and plans to expand to four by early July. Ticket sales are now open across six routes including Cairo, Dubai, Madrid, Manchester, and London, with additional destinations to follow over the coming weeks.

The domestic launch was deliberate on both timing and geography. The Riyadh-Jeddah corridor moves nearly 10M seats annually and is dominated by Saudia. Riyadh Air is entering at a price point that undercuts the incumbent on comparable cabin classes at SAR 457 ($122) versus Saudia’s SAR 497 ($133), while pricing above the budget carriers. CEO Tony Douglas framed the regional conflict as a tailwind rather than a headwind, arguing that disruptions elsewhere in the Gulf are pushing traveler traffic toward Riyadh, which has maintained uninterrupted airport operations throughout the war. The harder test comes when Gulf rivals restore normal operations and Riyadh Air has to compete on product and service alone rather than on the relative safety of its home airport. A fleet of 72 Dreamliners and a target of 100 destinations by 2030 is an ambitious build but the opening two weeks suggest the operational machinery is working.

IPO Watch

MSGA Investment Commences Trading

Riyadh-based residential developer MSGA Investment opens subscription on its Nomu parallel market IPO today at SAR 6.00 ($1.60) per share, targeting SAR 66.7M ($17.8M) and implying a post-listing market cap of SAR 667M ($177.9M). The company posted SAR 61.9M ($16.5M) in net income for 2025, up nearly sixfold from the year prior. Subscription runs through June 24, with allocation on June 28. Yaqeen Capital is acting as financial advisor and lead manager. MSGA is pressing ahead while larger names have blinked, a signal worth watching.

MGC and Arabian Dyar Delay Listings

Both MGC and Arabian Dyar have pulled their planned listings. MGC had been seeking SAR 3B ($800M) at a SAR 10B ($2.67B) valuation, making it the most anticipated Gulf listing since the conflict began. Its institutional book was reportedly oversubscribed, but the deal was pulled anyway. Shareholders grew concerned that ongoing instability would weigh on post-listing performance even if the subscription closed cleanly. Arabian Dyar followed suit, citing weak market sentiment at its targeted valuation of approximately SAR 16B ($4.3B). Both issuers are widely expected to return once regional visibility improves. Many describe the pause as a timing call, not a permanent retreat, noting that infrastructure names contract exposure tend to come back quickly once the windown reopens.

Gulf Insulation Group Files for Tadawul Listing

Gulf Insulation Group, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi state industrial conglomerate SENAAT, submitted its application to the CMA to list on the main Tadawul market. SENAAT is one of the UAE’s largest industrial holding groups, with assets spanning steel, aluminum, chemicals, and building materials across the Gulf. Gulf Insulation itself is a leading manufacturer of thermal and acoustic insulation solutions, serving the construction, oil and gas, and industrial sectors across the region. No pricing or timeline for the listing has been disclosed. The filing adds another industrials name to a primary market pipeline that is clearly still moving even as the headline deals pause. The CMA review process will determine the timeline from here.

Spotlight: A Quarter of Constraint, Year of Transition, and a 2027 That Looks Very Different

The World Bank released its June Global Economic Prospects report last week, trimming Saudi Arabia’s 2026 growth forecast to 3.1%, down approximately 1.2% from its January projection. Riyad Capital’s own Q2 2026 Saudi Economic Chartbook projects a more subdued 0.9% for the full year, with Q1 real GDP coming in at 3.0% but still the softest reading since Q2 2024. The downgrades made headlines. The context around them deserves equal attention.

Saudi Arabia is expected to outgrow every major Gulf peer this year, and it is not particularly close. Qatar is projected to contract 5.7%. Kuwait faces a 6.3% contraction. Iraq is looking at an 8.9% decline. The UAE and Oman each land at 2.4% growth. Against a backdrop where the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since late February, the Kingdom’s relative performance is the story, not the absolute number.

The differentiator is structural. The East-West pipeline, running oil from the Eastern Province to terminals at the Red Sea, has allowed Saudi Arabia to maintain a meaningful portion of its export capacity throughout the conflict. Beneath the headline GDP number, the underlying economy has held up better than the oil figures suggest. Government investment surged 54% year-over-year in Q1 and inflation held at just 1.8% in May despite months of Hormuz disruption. These are not the indicators of an economy under structural stress, they are the indicators of an economy navigating disruption while its diversification does the work.

Now look at 2027. Riyad Capital’s baseline, assuming a phased Hormuz reopening from September 2026, projects real GDP growth of 6.8%, with the oil sector rebounding 14.3% as production climbs to 10.4M barrels per day. Non-oil activities are seen accelerating to 4.7%, reflecting the sustained momentum of Vision 2030 investment across tourism, logistics, manufacturing, and technology. The World Bank’s own baseline points in the same direction, projecting a Saudi growth rebound to 4.9% in 2027 as Hormuz normalizes.

The ceasefire announced June 14 and subsequently signed makes both institutions’ reopening timelines look potentially conservative, as the 2027 recovery becomes a floor rather than a ceiling. For investors entering positions in Saudi assets, the World Bank and Riyad Capital reports are best read not as reasons for concern, but as confirmation of the thesis that has been playing out since February. That advantage does not disappear when Hormuz reopens, it becomes the foundation for the recovery.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletter Here:

The Markets are back, and so are the Pilgrims; MGC Announces $800M IPO on Tadawul

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:50:07 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

Against one of the most disrupted regional backdrops in decades, more than 1.7M Muslims performed Hajj this year, a quiet but meaningful statement. Of those, 1.54M arrived from outside the Kingdom, roughly 11,000 more foreign pilgrims than in 2025, despite months of air traffic disruption, surging travel costs, and the ever-present backdrop of the Iran war. Some arrived to find air defense batteries deployed on the outskirts of Mecca. They prayed anyway.

The stories coming out of the holy sites carried the particular weight of this moment. A 68-year-old Moroccan pilgrim who had waited his entire life to make the journey described finally arriving as his dream coming true. An Egyptian pilgrim, watching the crowds around the Kaaba, spoke simply about wanting peace. Saudi Arabia, for its part, deployed extensive security, medical, and emergency services across Mina, Arafat, and Muzdalifah, and by most accounts, the season concluded without incident. The Ministry of Interior announced that planning for Hajj 2027 had already begun before the last pilgrims departed. At 45 degrees Celsius, with a region still unsettled, 1.7M people still made the journey. That is worth noting.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia is quietly building one of the world's fastest-growing business events industries. The Kingdom's Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions sector is forecast to reach $5.65B by 2031, growing at a compound annual rate of 9.82%, according to Mordor Intelligence. Government spending on business event venues already hit $1.3B in 2023 across Riyadh and Jeddah alone, and millions of square metres of new exhibition space are being delivered alongside expanded airport capacity and thousands of new hotel rooms. The Saudi Tourism Society projects the broader MENA MICE market at $100B by 2035, with the Kingdom ranking among the top three regional destinations.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

Power Metallic Backs Its Saudi Strategy With $30 Million

Two weeks ago, this section covered Power Metallic Mines Inc. (TSXV: PNPN) and its joint venture framework with Amaar United Mining Company, a 50/50 structure designed to pursue future Saudi mining license auction rounds, with Power Metallic contributing technical and operational leadership and Amaar Mining handling local coordination and regulatory interface. This week, the company backed that strategy with capital.

Power Metallic launched a C$25M brokered LIFE offering on May 28, sole bookrun by Red Cloud Securities, and upsized it to C$30M the next day. The offering prices 24M common shares at C$1.25 each, with closing expected around June 10, subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.

Net proceeds will advance two assets: the NISK Project in Québec and the Jabal Baudan exploration license in Saudi Arabia’s Jabal Sayid Belt. Jabal Baudan spans more than 200 square kilometres in a district recognized for volcanogenic massive sulphide-style mineralization, prospective for copper, gold, and zinc, the same belt that hosts the world-class Jabal Sayid mine. For the first US$10M of approved post-award work program spending under the JV, Amaar Mining carries US$7.5M versus Power Metallic’s US$2.5M, with equal funding contributions beyond that threshold.

The upsizing due to strong demand is a useful data point. An active license, a structured local partner, and now a funded work program puts Power Metallic in a meaningfully different position than most Canadian juniors watching the Kingdom’s mining sector from the sidelines.

News

TASI Returns from Eid on Solid Footing; Foreign Buyers In

Tadawul reopened after Eid Al-Adha on May 31 without drama. The TASI gained 0.4% on the first session back, and the index is now up 5.6% year-to-date, outperforming most regional peers since the conflict began. Ceasefire talks were visibly stalling going into the long weekend, yet the market absorbed the uncertainty without meaningful selling pressure. Foreign institutional investors net purchased SAR 986.2M ($263M) in Saudi stocks in the most recent trading week, continuing a pattern of consistent inflows that has characterized the post-war period. FTSE Russell’s quarterly review also added four Saudi stocks to its index. The market data and the post-Eid open are sending the same message: institutional appetite for Saudi equity has not broken.

SGS Locks Down Saudi Aviation for Five Years

Saudi Ground Services was awarded a SAR 6.3B ($1.68B) airport services contract by Saudia, covering ground handling, ramp handling, and passenger services across all Saudi airports for the next five years. The deal extends a pattern: SGS has now secured Saudia, Flynas, and Riyadh Air on contracts stretching three to five years, effectively ring-fencing the core of Saudi Arabia’s aviation market. International rivals like Switzerland’s Swissport have been expanding across Saudi airports, targeting foreign carrier business, but the home team controls the domestic anchor. At SAR 6.3B over five years, the contract is also a meaningful revenue anchor for SGS shareholders.

Saudi Arabia’s Q1 Deficit Hits Eight-Year High

Saudi Arabia’s Q1 2026 fiscal deficit widened to SAR 125.7B ($33.5B), its highest quarterly level since 2018. That data accompanied a Financial Times report claiming the government had paused approvals for new consultancy contracts and delayed payments to Western advisory firms. The Finance Ministry pushed back, telling the FT that 99.5% of invoices were settled within agreed timelines and attributing the deficit to a liquidity lag and war-related spending, as oil revenue had already exceeded pre-conflict estimates for Q1. Saudi Arabia’s fiscal breakeven sits at roughly $108–111 per barrel, and with Brent closing May at $92 per barrel, the revenue gap is real.

Spotlight: Kingdom Holding’s SpaceX Moment

Kingdom Holding Company (TASI: 4280) returned from Eid with a 10% single-day gain on May 31, closing at SAR 13.58, its highest level in roughly a decade. The stock is now up 92% year-to-date, a performance that has little to do with the Kingdom’s football clubs or its hotel portfolio and everything to do with one pending event: the SpaceX IPO.

KHC holds a combined 0.63% stake in SpaceX alongside Prince Alwaleed’s private office. At SpaceX’s targeted $1.75T valuation, that slice is worth approximately $10.6B. SpaceX filed for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker SPCX, targeting a raise of up to $75B in what would be the largest IPO in history by a considerable margin. Marketing is expected to begin June 4, with pricing as early as June 11.

For North American investors tracking Saudi equities, KHC is currently the cleanest listed proxy for SpaceX exposure outside the United States. The market has worked that out and is pricing it in aggressively. Whether the stock holds those gains after the IPO prices is a separate question, but for now, the rally has a clear and coherent rationale behind it.

IPO Watch

MGC Launches the Gulf’s First Major IPO Since the War

Mutlaq Al Ghowairi Contracting (MGC) kicked off institutional bookbuilding on May 31, seeking to raise up to SAR 3B ($800M) at a price range of SAR 11–12.5 per share, implying a top-end valuation of SAR 10B ($2.67B). The offering covers 240M shares, representing a 30% stake, making it the largest single listing test the Gulf has faced since the conflict erupted in late February.

MGC is a 47-year-old infrastructure EPC and O&M contractor focused on water networks, roads, railways, and pipelines. Its client list includes Aramco, NEOM, Doosan, and Acciona. Revenue is forecasted to reach SAR 6.29B ($1.68B) for the full-year 2026. Q1 2026 delivered SAR 202M ($53.9M) in net profit on SAR 967M ($258M) in revenue, a 21% net margin. The company entered the year with a SAR 10.6B ($2.83B) backlog, at a 2.7x backlog-to-revenue coverage ratio. Water infrastructure accounts for 84% of revenue.

Al Rajhi Capital and Morgan Stanley Saudi Arabia are acting as joint advisors, global coordinators, bookrunners, and underwriters, with ANB Capital and Emirates NBD as additional bookrunners. Bookbuilding to end June 4, with final pricing set for June 8.

MSGA Heads to Nomu

Riyadh-based residential developer MSGA Investment is floating 11.1M shares, a 10% stake, on the Nomu parallel market. The company reported SAR 61.9M ($16.5M) in net income for 2025, up from SAR 10.6M ($2.83M) a year earlier, on revenue of SAR 162.8M ($43.41M). It has 466 residential units already in development, targeting a housing market still expected to need approximately 830,000 additional units by 2034. Offering to be done between June 17–24, with allocation on June 28. Yaqeen Capital is acting as financial advisor and lead manager.

Gulf Insulation Group Files for TASI Listing

Gulf Insulation Group, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi state industrial conglomerate SENAAT, submitted its application to the CMA to list on the main Tadawul market. No pricing or timeline has been disclosed yet, but the filing adds another industrials name to a primary market pipeline that is clearly reopening.

Market Snapshot

Spotlight: Oil’s Worst Month Since COVID – and Why the Rating Still Holds

Brent crude fell approximately 19% in May, its steepest monthly decline since the COVID-19 pandemic. The driver was straightforward: as US-Iran ceasefire talks moved from rumour to near-agreement, the war risk premium that had pushed Brent above $120 per barrel in March began unwinding in earnest. The two sides reportedly “mostly agreed” on a 60-day memorandum of understanding, though the deal wobbled going into the long weekend over enrichment terms and frozen asset language, with strikes continuing even as negotiators exchanged drafts. Brent settled the month around $91–93.

For Saudi Arabia, that number sits uncomfortably below the Kingdom’s fiscal breakeven of roughly $108–111 per barrel. The gap is real and the Q1 fiscal deficit, at SAR 125.7B ($33.5B), is already at its widest since 2018. Neither figure is easy to look past.

Last week Moody’s affirmed Saudi Arabia’s Aa3 sovereign rating with a stable outlook, the fourth-highest investment-grade on its scale, citing the same structural pillars that have held through the conflict: the East-West Pipeline now carrying 7M barrels per day through Red Sea terminals, non-hydrocarbon revenue at 45% of total government receipts in 2025 and 90% of the Kingdom’s 2026 financing needs secured before the first missile was fired. Moody’s projects a 1.7% GDP contraction this year, with debt rising from 32% toward 40% of GDP over the medium term.

The upside is sharper than the baseline. A durable ceasefire and reopening of Hormuz would, in Moody’s modelling, produce an 8% GDP rebound in 2027, a recovery pace that would look exceptional by historical comparison. With S&P and Fitch also holding at A+, all three major agencies are aligned. The institutional machinery is being positioned well before the inclusion date arrives.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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Saudi Arabia's Economy Showing Resilience Amid War Activities

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 20 May 2026 14:28:47 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

The IMF’s Verdict: Saudi Arabia has Weathered the War Better Than Anyone Else in the Gulf

In a May 14 interview with Al Arabiya Business, Dr. Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), made a pointed assessment: Saudi Arabia was the least affected economy in the Gulf by the Iran war. He attributed this in part to the Kingdom’s infrastructure advantage, specifically its ability to reroute oil exports through its East-West pipeline, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely while other Gulf producers scrambled.

The IMF director’s framing matters because it comes from the institution that sets the terms of how the global financial community evaluates emerging market risk. When the IMF singles out Saudi Arabia as the regional outlier on resilience, it shapes how sovereign credit desks, asset allocators, and risk committees in New York and Toronto think about the Kingdom relative to its neighbours.

The on-the-ground evidence supports the assessment. Saudi Arabia’s main stock exchange (TASI) has held positive ground since the war began in late February, while Dubai and Abu Dhabi benchmark indexes fell sharply. Saudi Arabia’s IPO market stayed open, with Dar Al Balad closing its institutional book 67x covered and its retail tranche nearly 4x oversubscribed. Aramco is now reportedly pursuing a USD 35 billion asset sale program, and Wall Street firms are lining up to participate. Bond markets stayed accessible, with financing margins that rose briefly before returning to pre-war levels, according to Azour.

Azour was careful to note that the conflict’s economic effects remain significant, particularly for commodity flows, and that the pace of recovery will vary by country depending on institutional strength. On that last point, he was direct: Saudi Arabia has demonstrated a high level of institutional capacity in the face of shocks. For investors building positions in the Kingdom, that is not a minor footnote. It is the central thesis.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia just switched on its first quantum computer. On May 18, Aramco and French quantum hardware firm Pasqal formally inaugurated the system at Aramco’s data center in Dhahran, alongside the Middle East’s first commercial Quantum Computing as a Service (QCaaS) platform. The 200-qubit neutral-atom machine is accessible to enterprises, universities, and research institutions globally via secure cloud, with planned use cases spanning port logistics, CO2 storage, well placement, and rig scheduling. For Saudi Arabia, it is one more deliberate step toward building technology revenue streams that do not depend on the price of oil.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

Power Metallic Mines Doubles Down on Saudi Arabia With a Local JV

In June of last year, Power Metallic Mines Inc. (TSXV: PNPN) entered Saudi Arabia through the award of the Jabal Baudan exploration license in the Jabal Sayid Mineralized Belt, a district recognized for volcanogenic massive sulphide-style mineralization and home to the world-class Jabal Sayid mine. The property covers more than 200 square kilometres, prospective for copper, gold, and zinc. That award established the company as one of a small number of Canadian juniors with an active exploration footprint inside the Kingdom.

On May 18, Power Metallic announced the next step. The company has entered into a strategic alliance and joint venture framework agreement with Amaar United Mining Company, a Saudi firm affiliated with the diversified Amaar Holding group, to jointly pursue future mining license auction rounds in the Kingdom. Under the structure, Power Metallic acts as technical lead and proposed operator, contributing geological, exploration, and work-program expertise. Amaar Mining handles local coordination, regulatory interface, and relationship management. Ownership and economics are split 50/50. For the first USD 10 million (SAR 37.5 million) of approved post-award work-program spending, Amaar Mining carries the heavier initial funding load at USD 7.5 million versus Power Metallic’s USD 2.5 million, with equal funding contributions from both parties beyond that threshold.

The structure is capital-efficient for Power Metallic and strategically rational for both sides. Saudi Arabia is moving quickly to develop its mining sector as the third pillar of its economy under Vision 2030, and competitive participation in future license rounds requires credible technical programs paired with local execution capability. This agreement gives Power Metallic a scalable platform to pursue that opportunity without overextending its balance sheet.

For North American investors, Power Metallic offers ground-floor exposure to Saudi Arabia’s mining opening through a TSXV-listed vehicle. The Kingdom is not only courting global majors. It is running open auction rounds where well-prepared juniors with strong geology and local partners can compete. Power Metallic has already proven it can win one. This agreement is built to win more.

Ticker: PNPN (TSXV) | HQ: Canada | Saudi Asset: Jabal Baudan license, Jabal Sayid Belt | JV Partner: Amaar Mining | Structure: 50/50 economics

News

SAB Invest Becomes Saudi Arabia’s First Registered ETF Market Maker

SAB Invest, the investment arm of Saudi Awwal Bank, was officially registered by the Saudi Exchange on May 18 as the first designated market maker under Tadawul’s newly launched ETF Market Making Framework. The appointment applies specifically to the SAB Invest Saudi Quant ETF (9402), Saudi Arabia’s first quantitatively driven, Shariah-compliant exchange-traded fund. Under the framework, SAB Invest must maintain active buy and sell quotes for at least 80% of the trading day, hold minimum order sizes of SAR 50,000 (USD 13,333), and keep bid-ask spreads within a 2% cap. The move is designed to deepen ETF liquidity, tighten pricing efficiency, and broaden access for both domestic and international investors as Tadawul works to position itself as a global financial hub.

Aramco Eyes USD 35 Billion Asset Sale Push to Attract Global Capital

Saudi Aramco is preparing the largest privatization drive in its history, with asset sales that could raise up to USD 35 billion (SAR 131.3 billion), according to Bloomberg. The program builds on a USD 11 billion lease deal signed with a BlackRock-led group in August 2025 covering the Jafurah Field Gas Plant and Riyas NGL Fractionation facility, which generated enough investor appetite to prompt a broader push. Planned transactions include a sale-and-leaseback of real estate assets, potentially including Aramco’s headquarters campus, a minority stake in oil export and storage terminals, and deals involving gas-fired power plants and water infrastructure. Aramco intends to retain full control of its upstream operations while opening midstream and downstream assets to global private equity and infrastructure investors. The deals also serve as a signal that Saudi Arabia can still attract foreign capital while the regional conflict continues.

JLL Opens Riyadh Sports and Entertainment Hub

Global real estate services firm JLL launched a dedicated Sports and Entertainment Hub in Riyadh on May 11, positioning the Saudi capital as its base for mandates across the Middle East and Africa. The hub will advise developers, investors, sports organizations, and brands across the full real estate lifecycle, from development planning and leasing through to capital markets support. JLL brings over USD 87 billion in relevant project value managed globally across more than 60 sports and entertainment organizations to the mandate. The timing reflects Saudi Arabia’s ambitions for the sector: the Kingdom is targeting a sports market worth SAR 56.82 billion (USD 15.15 billion) by 2030, with the industry expected to contribute 3% to non-oil GDP, up from 1.39% in 2023, ahead of hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

IPO Watch

Saudi Arabia’s Listing Pipeline Heats Up as Investor Appetite Holds

The evidence is accumulating that Saudi Arabia’s IPO market is finding its footing despite the regional backdrop. Dar Al Balad for Business Solutions, which we covered in our last edition as the first Gulf IPO since the Iran war began, closed its retail subscription on May 18, with the tranche 375.7% oversubscribed. More than 90,000 retail investors submitted orders at the SAR 9.75 (USD 2.60) offer price, with a minimum allocation of 10 shares per subscriber. Combined with the institutional book that came in 67x covered, the deal confirms that domestic investor appetite remains intact. Final allocations were announced on May 18, with the listing to follow.

The next name up is Mutlaq Al Ghowairi Contracting (MGC), a Riyadh-based infrastructure EPC firm founded in 1977 that focuses on water networks, roads, railways, and pipelines. MGC is offering 240 million shares representing 30% of its capital, with institutional book-building running from May 31 to June 4 and retail subscription from June 15 to 17. The offer price will be announced on May 31. MGC reported SAR 1.2 billion (USD 320 million) in net profit in 2024 and entered 2026 with a SAR 10.6 billion (USD 2.83 billion) backlog, equivalent to a 2.7x backlog-to-revenue ratio. Water infrastructure accounts for 84.2% of revenue. Al Rajhi Capital and Morgan Stanley Saudi Arabia are acting as joint financial advisors and bookrunners, with Kirkland and Ellis as legal counsel.

Beyond MGC, the pipeline building behind it is the more telling story. Ninja, Saudi Arabia’s quick-delivery platform, has picked banks for a potential USD 1 billion IPO targeting late 2026 or early 2027. ArcelorMittal Tubular Products Jubail, a PIF-backed steel pipe manufacturer, has appointed JPMorgan and HSBC. Alkhorayef Petroleum, also PIF-backed, is preparing to file for regulatory approval. Olayan-linked Health Water Bottling is working with Lazard on a potential listing. Etihad Salam Telecom is adding banks for junior roles. Arabian Dyar is racing a June CMA approval deadline. The breadth of sectors represented, infrastructure, logistics, telecoms, industrials, and consumer goods, is the clearest signal yet that the new listing wave is not concentrated in one corner of the market.

Tadawul’s relative resilience since the war began is doing much of the work. While Dubai and Abu Dhabi benchmark indexes have lagged Riyadh since late February, TASI has held positive ground, giving prospective issuers the market conditions they need to move forward.

Spotlight: Why SAR-Denominated Paper Will Be Hard to Ignore for Global Funds

In late April, J.P. Morgan and Bloomberg each confirmed that Saudi riyal-denominated government sukuk will be added to their flagship emerging market bond indices. J.P. Morgan’s Government Bond Index for Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) will begin phasing in Saudi sukuk on January 29, 2027, at an expected weight of 2.52%, covering eight qualifying issuances with a combined nominal value of around USD 69 billion. Bloomberg’s Emerging Market Local Currency Government Index follows with an April-end 2027 rebalancing, and a preview version of the updated index is expected in Q3 2026.

The Saudi Exchange CEO has estimated that the dual inclusion will generate over USD 10 billion in foreign inflows. That number is grounded in mechanics. The GBI-EM is tracked by USD 233 billion in investments globally, and index-tracking funds do not exercise discretion when a new member is added. They buy. The passive inflow is effectively pre-committed once the inclusion date arrives.

What makes this story bigger than the headline figure is what index membership signals about Saudi Arabia’s position in global capital markets. When Saudi equities were added to MSCI Emerging Markets in 2019, it marked the moment Tadawul became investable for institutional equity allocators. This is the fixed-income equivalent of that moment. SAR-denominated government paper moves from a regional instrument that required a deliberate decision to access, into a standard line item in a global benchmark portfolio.

Saudi Arabia is also better positioned for this transition than most countries that have gone through it. The riyal peg eliminates currency volatility, which is frequently the primary deterrent for international investors considering local currency emerging market debt. The Kingdom’s credit rating sits above many existing GBI-EM members. And the market infrastructure has been overhauled specifically to support foreign participation, with the Primary Dealers Program expanded to include international banks, an over-the-counter settlement framework introduced in mid-2025, and connectivity established with Euroclear and other international central securities depositories. Both index providers cited this infrastructure progress in their inclusion decisions.

The structural gap that remains is corporate issuance. Government bonds currently dominate the local debt market, and a benchmark that consists almost entirely of sovereign paper limits the options available to active managers looking to build diversified SAR-denominated portfolios. Broadening the corporate issuer base is the next chapter of this story, and index inclusion may accelerate it by drawing in the foreign demand that makes local currency issuance more attractive for private sector borrowers.

For North American fixed income allocators, the timeline is clear. The index change takes effect in early 2027, but positioning decisions are made well in advance. SAR-denominated paper is no longer a niche call. It is becoming a benchmark one.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletter Here:

UAE Departs from OPEC; Who's Next?

Saudi Market Monitor — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:50:25 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

The UAE Just Left OPEC. Here’s What It Means for Saudi Arabia.

On May 1, the United Arab Emirates formally exited OPEC, the oil cartel it had belonged to since 1967. It gave less than a week’s notice.

The immediate market impact is limited. UAE exports, like all Gulf shipments, remain constrained by Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the war began in late February. But the long-term implications are significant, and Saudi Arabia sits at the center of them.

The core tension is structural. The UAE has spent billions expanding its production capacity toward 5 million barrels per day by 2027, but its OPEC quota capped it at just 3.2 million bpd. Outside the cartel, Abu Dhabi is free to pump at will once the strait reopens. That could add up to 1.6 million bpd of incremental supply to global markets, roughly 1.5% of global output, at a moment when Saudi Arabia’s entire strategy depends on price discipline holding.

The Saudi-UAE rift predates the war, but the conflict has hardened it. The two countries have diverged on Iran strategy, Yemen, foreign investment competition, and now oil policy. As one analyst put it, Saudi Arabia aims to sustain oil markets for the next century; the UAE, with a more diversified economy, does not require high prices to balance its budget and can afford to prioritize volume over price.

For Saudi Arabia, the departure is a manageable near-term event but a meaningful long-term complication. The Kingdom now shoulders an even larger share of the burden of managing global oil prices, with fewer partners willing to share that weight. OPEC’s share of global output has already fallen from roughly 48% to below 44% since the war began. It is about to fall further.

For North American investors tracking Saudi equity and credit exposure, the read-through is straightforward: Aramco’s revenue assumptions, Saudi Arabia’s fiscal position, and the riyal peg all rest on oil prices staying supported. A post-war UAE flooding the market is a tail risk worth monitoring.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia’s 2026 hiring market reveals a striking confidence gap between employers and employees. According to the Hays Saudi Arabia Salary Guide 2026, 74% of firms plan to grow their headcount this year, and 69% of professionals received a pay raise in 2025. Yet 56% of workers still feel their salary does not reflect the weight of their responsibilities, and nearly 30% are holding out for a raise of 20% or more this year. Meanwhile, most employers are planning increases in the 2.5 to 5% range. That gap between what companies are offering and what talent expects is becoming one of the defining friction points of Vision 2030’s labor market transformation. A workforce that is growing, increasingly skilled, and increasingly mobile is beginning to price itself accordingly.

News

PIF Opens Shanghai Office as Saudi Arabia Deepens Its China Investment Footprint

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund quietly opened a second mainland China office in Shanghai earlier this year, adding to its existing Beijing outpost as part of a deliberate effort to expand deal flow in both directions. The Shanghai operation was registered last year and falls under the leadership of Lily Cong, a former Fidelity International executive, with a mandate focused on facilitating outbound deals in China while also drawing Chinese capital into the Kingdom. The move reflects a broader PIF posture: while the US remains a primary market, Saudi Arabia is hedging its global exposure by deepening ties with Beijing across energy, finance, and infrastructure. PIF peers in Abu Dhabi are pursuing similar consolidation of Chinese assets, suggesting a Gulf-wide recalibration of how sovereign capital engages with Asia.

Humain Goes to Market with Enterprise AI Platform Backed by AWS

Humain, the AI arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has launched HUMAIN ONE, a generative AI operating system designed to help enterprises replace fragmented application stacks with unified, agent-driven workflows. The product will be distributed through AWS Marketplace across 39 global cloud regions, giving it immediate international reach on launch. The announcement follows the May 2025 commitment by Humain and AWS to deploy more than $5 billion in Saudi AI infrastructure, and arrives alongside the upcoming launch of a dedicated AWS Region in the Kingdom. The product launch signals that Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions are moving beyond announcements and data centers into commercially viable software.

PIF Confirms End of LIV Golf Funding, Completing a Strategic Pivot Already Underway

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund confirmed on April 30 that it will end its financial support for LIV Golf at the close of the 2026 season, bringing down the curtain on a four-year, $5 billion experiment in sports-led influence. In a statement, PIF said the level of investment required was “no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy,” citing investment priorities and macro dynamics. LIV has moved quickly to appoint an independent board and launch a search for new financial partners, though its ability to replace sovereign-scale funding through commercial means remains deeply uncertain.

The decision confirms a direction we flagged in our last edition: PIF’s new 2026-2030 strategy is explicitly returns-focused, with capital shifting toward domestic ecosystems and deadline-driven infrastructure rather than soft-power vehicles. LIV joins the WTA Riyadh Finals and the Next Gen ATP Finals as sports commitments that no longer fit the new framework. Saudi Arabia has the 2034 FIFA World Cup and Expo 2030 locked in. The positioning work is done.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

OpenText Plants Its Flag in Riyadh as Saudi Arabia’s Enterprise AI Buildout Moves from Infrastructure to Software

OpenText Corporation (NASDAQ/TSX: OTEX) | HQ: Waterloo, ON | Market Cap: ~USD 6.0B | Middle East HQ: King Abdullah Financial District, Riyadh

While this edition’s News covers Humain and AWS building the operating system layer for Saudi enterprise AI, a quieter but equally significant move happened four months earlier. In January 2026, OpenText, one of Canada’s largest technology companies, opened its Middle East regional headquarters in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District, with Canada’s Minister of International Trade in attendance.

The timing is not coincidental. OpenText sells enterprise information management, cybersecurity, and AI data platforms, exactly the software layer that sits between a company’s raw data and its AI applications. As Saudi Arabia’s government and private sector move from AI experimentation to scaled deployment, the demand for secure, compliant, and locally governed data infrastructure becomes the critical enabler. That is OpenText’s core product.

The Riyadh headquarters is designed to serve that transition directly. The company is expanding its local workforce, building partnerships with government entities, and positioning its platform to address Saudi Arabia’s data sovereignty requirements, a growing compliance priority as AI workloads move into regulated industries. The opening was framed explicitly as part of Canada’s trade mission to Saudi Arabia, making it one of the more visible signals yet of deepening commercial ties between the two countries.

For North American investors, OpenText is a different profile from the small-cap TSXV names featured in previous editions of this section. At roughly USD 5.8 billion in market cap and USD 5.2 billion in trailing revenue, it is a mid-cap enterprise software company with a 4.7% dividend yield, 20 consecutive quarters of cloud revenue growth, and a new CEO, Ayman Antoun, who joined in April 2026 with a mandate to accelerate the company’s AI and cloud pivot. The stock has pulled back significantly over the past year, trading near its 52-week low, which means the Saudi growth angle is not yet priced in.

The strategic logic is clear. Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions require not just compute and models, but the governance, security, and information management infrastructure to run them at enterprise scale. OpenText is one of the few Canadian companies already on the ground in Riyadh to deliver exactly that.

IPO Watch

Saudi Arabia Has a Startup-to-IPO Pipeline. The Question Is How Fast It Matures.

Tadawul listed 42 of the 53 IPOs across GCC markets in 2024, more than any other regional exchange, and newly listed Saudi stocks posted 37% post-listing gains that year, the strongest in the Gulf. The exchange has clearly earned its status as the listing venue of choice for regional founders. A new survey from Endeavor and SVC puts some numbers behind the forward pipeline: 77% of the 30 founders surveyed are actively considering going public, with nearly all of them targeting Tadawul specifically, and 74% aiming to list by 2028.

What the survey also reveals is that intent is running well ahead of readiness. Despite strong financial fundamentals, more than half of the founders surveyed report that their current corporate structures fall short of CMA listing requirements. The most common gaps are not financial; they are organizational: over two-thirds of companies lack an independent board member, more than half have no Head of Investor Relations, and 60% have not yet engaged IPO advisors despite planning to list within two years. The bottleneck is not ambition or capital. It is the governance and institutional infrastructure that converts a private company into a credible public one.

The structural capital gap compounds the problem. More than 80% of Saudi VC activity is concentrated at the early stage, leaving founders without the growth-stage financing needed to reach the scale and maturity where a listing becomes realistic. The report points to coordinated co-investment between public capital, local venture funds, and banks as the most practical near-term remedy.

For investors tracking Tadawul’s long-term depth, the read-through is constructive but patient. The pipeline is real, and founder sentiment is the strongest it has been. The next wave of non-oil listings will take time to arrive, but the conditions that produce them are steadily being built.

Dar Al Balad Prices at SAR 9.75, Books 66.6x Oversubscribed in First Gulf IPO Since the War

Dar Al Balad for Business Solutions, a Riyadh-based IT managed services and industrial solutions company, priced its Tadawul IPO at SAR 9.75 per share (USD 2.60), the top of its guided range, following an institutional book-build that came in 66.6 times oversubscribed. The offering covers 21,000,000 shares representing 30% of the company’s capital, implying a transaction size of approximately SAR 205 million (USD 55 million) and a total valuation of SAR 682 million (USD 182 million), roughly 13.5 times its 2025 net income of SAR 51 million.

As the first Gulf IPO since the Iran war began in late February, the oversubscription level is the clearest real-money signal yet that institutional appetite for Saudi equity remains intact under wartime conditions. Retail subscriptions open May 10 and close May 14, with final allocations announced May 18. AlJazira Capital is acting as financial advisor, lead manager, and underwriter, alongside Emirates NBD as joint bookrunner.

What to watch next: Berain, a bottled water company that received CMA approval on the same day Dar Al Balad published its prospectus, is expected to move quickly to capitalize on the same window.

Spotlight: Saudi Arabia’s Gigaproject Reckoning

The Kingdom is still building. It’s just building differently now.

For several years, Saudi Arabia’s gigaproject pipeline served as the most visible proof point of Vision 2030’s ambition. NEOM, The Line, Trojena, Diriyah, the Mukaab, and dozens of associated contracts created a construction narrative unlike anything else in the world. That narrative is now being substantially rewritten.

In Q1 2026, Saudi Arabia awarded USD 11 billion (SAR 41.3 billion) in project contracts, a 51.1% decline year-over-year and the second-lowest quarterly figure recorded over the past five years. The construction sector bore the sharpest drop, falling 64.4% to USD 3.4 billion (SAR 12.8 billion), while water contracts collapsed from USD 5.1 billion (SAR 19.1 billion) to USD 729 million (SAR 2.7 billion). The regional conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruptions added pressure to an already softening pipeline, but the slowdown predates the war. It began in 2025, when the gigaproject award activity started to quietly contract.

The contract terminations tell the clearest story. Saudi Arabia has scrapped a multi-billion dollar freshwater lake contract at NEOM’s Trojena ski resort, halted construction at the Mukaab, and cancelled a USD 1 billion tunnelling contract at The Line. These were not small adjustments. They represent a formal acknowledgment that projects designed for a different moment, and in some cases a different physics, require fundamental reassessment. The Line, conceived as a 170-kilometre linear city housing 9 million people, has seen its initial phase quietly scaled back to a fraction of that scope.

What is actually happening is a pivot, not a retreat. The Saudi government has signalled a shift toward projects with clearer economic returns and nearer-term completion timelines. The USD 735.1 billion (SAR 2.76 trillion) already under execution remains the largest active project market in MENA, and the forward pipeline of USD 999.3 billion (SAR 3.75 trillion) is intact. Construction still leads the pipeline at 38%, followed by power at 20% and transport at 17%. The work has not stopped. The speculative edge of it has been trimmed.

For investors, the distinction matters. Companies with exposure to core infrastructure, utilities, transportation, and industrial construction in Saudi Arabia are on steadier ground than those tied to the more experimental megaproject concepts. The chemical sector was actually the one bright spot in Q1, rising from zero awards in Q1 2025 to USD 2.5 billion (SAR 9.4 billion), a signal that industrial diversification spending is proceeding even as the architectural moonshots are scaled back.

The broader read is one of maturation. A project pipeline worth nearly USD 1 trillion does not disappear. It gets reprioritized. Saudi Arabia is still one of the most active construction markets on the planet. What is shifting is which version of Vision 2030 is getting built first.

Market Snapshot

Chart Of The Week

Saudi Arabia awarded USD 11 billion in project contracts in Q1 2026, the second-lowest quarterly total in over five years and a 51.1% decline from Q1 2025. Construction led all sectors in absolute value but recorded the sharpest year-over-year drop, falling 64.4% from USD 9.5 billion a year earlier. The only sector to post meaningful growth was Chemicals, which rose from zero awards in Q1 2025 to USD 2.5 billion, reflecting continued momentum in industrial diversification. The broad-based contraction reflects both a deliberate scaling back of gigaproject activity and the added disruption of the regional conflict.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletter Here:

10 Year Mark of Vision 2030: What's Next?

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:27:42 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report ranked Saudi Arabia first globally in two categories: female representation among AI inventors and authors at 32.3%, ahead of Australia at 30.1% and Canada at 29.6%, and the share of AI inventors working in security, privacy and cryptography at 15%, ahead of India at 13% and the UAE at 12%.

The Kingdom also recorded the fastest growth in AI talent share of any country globally, more than doubling between 2019 and 2025. Over 80% of employees in Saudi Arabia report regular AI use at work, and generative AI adoption among university students has reached 89%, compared with 67% in the US and UK. Notably, Saudi Arabia remains one of a small group of countries with a net positive flow of AI talent, meaning more researchers and inventors are arriving than leaving.

The Stanford rankings arrive at a moment when Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions have moved well beyond strategy documents. In May 2025, the Kingdom launched HUMAIN, a PIF-backed national AI company tasked with building sovereign compute infrastructure, developing Arabic-language models, and managing large-scale data center capacity. HUMAIN’s first two facilities in Riyadh and Dammam are now operational, each delivering around 100 megawatts of capacity, with a national target of 6.6 gigawatts by 2034. The company has already signed major partnerships with NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, and AWS, and invested $3 billion into Elon Musk’s xAI as part of a $20 billion funding round. Saudi Arabia now ranks among the world’s top three nations in AI compute capacity, with 7.2 million H100-equivalent processors supported by 2.4 gigawatts of power.

The broader talent picture reinforces the infrastructure story. The Ministry of Education has introduced a nationwide AI curriculum, the government is running a program to certify 100,000 citizens in AI and data skills, and Saudi Arabia’s lowest-in-G20 electricity costs at roughly USD 0.05 per kilowatt-hour gives the Kingdom a structural cost advantage in training and hosting large AI models at scale.

For a country that North American investors still primarily associate with oil, the Stanford rankings are a useful reminder of how quickly the underlying economy is changing. Saudi Arabia is not just building the pipes. It is producing the people to run them.

Did You Know??

April 2026 marks the ten-year anniversary of Vision 2030, the sweeping economic transformation program launched by Mohammed bin Salman. The ambition was bold: end Saudi Arabia’s addiction to oil, open the economy, and reposition the Kingdom as a global hub for tourism, technology, and investment.
A decade later, the progress is tangible. Non-oil revenue has grown, unemployment has fallen, and Saudi Arabia has transformed from a country that was largely closed to foreign visitors into one actively courting global capital and tourism. But ambitions outgrew finances, and projects announced during oil booms are now being scaled back. Saudi Arabia has run a budget deficit in all but one of the past ten years.
On the tenth anniversary, PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan captured the new posture in a single word: efficiency. Ten years in, Vision 2030 is not retreating. It is growing up.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. (TSX: ATRL) | Montreal, QC | Market Cap: ~C$15B

Most North American investors thinking about Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure buildout look to US engineering giants or European contractors. They may be overlooking one of the best-positioned players in the space, headquartered right in Montreal.

AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. (TSX: ATRL), formerly SNC-Lavalin, is a world-class engineering services and nuclear company with operations in over 50 countries, and Saudi Arabia is listed explicitly as one of its primary operating jurisdictions. The company has spent more than 50 years building a presence in the Kingdom and is currently active across some of Vision 2030’s most consequential projects. Its Saudi portfolio includes a five-year delivery partner contract on The Line at NEOM, the Red Sea Project, Diriyah Gate, King Salman Park, the Riyadh Metro, and King Abdulaziz International Airport.

The NEOM scaling back discussed in this edition’s Spotlight is worth addressing directly. While The Line as a concept has been deprioritized, AtkinsRéalis’s work is concentrated in the infrastructure enablement layer, engineering, project management, and systems integration, rather than the headline architectural elements that are being phased. As NEOM’s focus shifts toward industrial zones and data center hubs, that is precisely the kind of complex, technical delivery work that AtkinsRéalis is built for. The company’s own thought leadership content is titled “Why Saudi Arabia’s giga projects are changing how cities are built,” signalling how central the Kingdom is to its strategic narrative.

The financial picture reinforces the thesis. AtkinsRéalis reported FY2025 total revenue of C$11.0B, up 14% year over year, with its Engineering Services division growing organically at approximately 11%. The company closed the year with a record-high backlog, up 20% from the start of 2025. With 13 out of 13 analysts rating the stock a Buy and a consensus price target of approximately C$118 against a current price of around C$91, the market may not be fully pricing in the durability of its Middle East pipeline.

For North American investors seeking structured exposure to Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure decade without taking on single-project or small-cap risk, AtkinsRéalis offers something rare: a profitable, well-covered, TSX-listed engineering company that is already deep inside the Kingdom’s most ambitious projects, and whose growth outlook is partly a function of how much Saudi Arabia continues to build.

News

The Ceasefire Has Been Fragile. Saudi Arabia Has Been Resilient.

The two-week US-Iran ceasefire announced on April 8 has been anything but stable. In the days following the agreement, Iranian strikes continued to hit Saudi energy infrastructure, including the Satorp and Riyadh refineries, the Ju’aymah gas processing facility, and the East-West pipeline, where a drone strike cut throughput by 700,000 barrels per day. Attacks also reduced output capacity at the Manifa and Khurais production facilities by approximately 300,000 barrels per day each.

Saudi Arabia’s response has been operationally swift. The East-West pipeline has since been restored to full capacity, the Manifa facility has been restarted, and Saudi Arabia has quadrupled crude shipments from its Red Sea terminals since late February to compensate for the near-total shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. Fortune The energy ministry credited Aramco’s “high operational resilience and crisis management efficiency” for the rapid recovery.

On the diplomatic front, the ceasefire is now expiring. Trump stated the ceasefire ends “Wednesday evening Washington time” and called it “highly unlikely” he would extend it further if a deal is not reached. CNN A second round of talks in Islamabad is expected, though Iran’s Foreign Ministry has said there is “no plan for a second round of negotiations with the U.S. for now,” CNBC citing ongoing ceasefire violations as a major obstacle. Brent crude climbed above $95 per barrel and WTI jumped more than 6% on Monday as markets repriced the risk of resumed hostilities. CNBC

For investors, the Saudi operational story remains the key takeaway. Infrastructure has been hit, repaired, and rerouted with speed that few other energy producers could match. The geopolitical outcome remains uncertain, but Saudi Arabia’s ability to keep oil flowing has been demonstrated under genuine stress.

PIF May Pull Funding from LIV Golf as Sports Strategy Shifts to Returns

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reportedly preparing to cut funding to LIV Golf, the breakaway league it bankrolled to an estimated $5 billion since 2022. LIV has struggled with low attendance, weak television viewership, and the departure of high-profile players, including Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, back to the PGA Tour. Discussions are ongoing and could include a search for outside backers. LIV’s CEO said in a memo that the league will continue despite the speculation.

The pullback extends beyond golf. The WTA season-ending championship will leave Riyadh after this year’s tournament. Saudi Arabia exercised an early opt-out on the Next Gen ATP Finals, and PIF’s anticipated backing of an NBA European league has reportedly met internal resistance.

The results have been mixed, but the broader strategy has worked. Saudi Arabia has secured the 2034 FIFA World Cup and cemented itself as a global destination for marquee sporting events. Having achieved that positioning, PIF no longer needs to overpay for influence. Now it needs the investments to pay back. Read more about PIF’s new 2026-2030 strategy in the Spotlight below.

PIF Doubles Down on Lucid with Fresh $550M as New CEO Takes the Wheel

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund injected an additional USD 550 million into Lucid Group through its Ayar Third Investment vehicle, joined by USD 200 million from Uber and a USD 300 million public stock offering, bringing the total raise to approximately USD 1.05 billion. PIF has now committed approximately USD 8.95 billion to Lucid since 2019 and holds a 58.4% majority stake. AGBI Lucid simultaneously named Silvio Napoli, former CEO of Swiss elevator manufacturer Schindler Group, as its new chief executive. He inherits a tough starting point: Q1 revenue of USD 280-284 million against an operating loss of roughly USD 1 billion. The fresh capital will support two new model launches and an expanded Uber robotaxi partnership covering at least 35,000 vehicles.

Spotlight: PIF’s New Playbook - Fewer Bets, Bigger Returns

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund unveiled its 2026-2030 strategy on April 15, reorganizing more than $1 trillion in assets around three portfolios and six priority ecosystems. The announcement marks a meaningful pivot: from the sprawling, build-everything ambition of the fund’s first decade to a more disciplined, return-focused posture aimed at building portfolio companies into global champions.

Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan framed the shift as a “natural next step,” but the context makes clear it is also a response to compounding pressures. The Iran war has disrupted oil exports, widened Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit, and accelerated a recalibration that was already underway before the first shot was fired. The IMF now projects Saudi GDP growth of 3.1% in 2026, down from 4.5% in 2025.

Three Portfolios, Six Ecosystems

The new structure organizes PIF’s activity into three buckets:

Vision Portfolio: Drives domestic economic growth across six priority ecosystems: tourism, travel and entertainment; urban development and livability; advanced manufacturing and innovation; industrials and logistics; clean energy, water and renewables infrastructure; and NEOM.
Strategic Portfolio: Actively manages key assets to maximize financial returns, attract co-investors, and scale portfolio companies into global champions.
Financial Portfolio: Manages direct and indirect investments in global markets. PIF’s internal rate of return has averaged approximately 7.2% since 2015.

The six ecosystems represent a deliberate narrowing from the 13 strategic sectors in the previous five-year strategy. Hard deadlines now govern sequencing: Expo 2030 and the 2034 FIFA World Cup require that infrastructure be delivered on time, and those commitments are reshaping what gets built first.

The NEOM Question Gets an Answer

For the first time, Al-Rumayyan directly confirmed that The Line is no longer a near-term priority. “Is it necessary to have The Line by 2030? I think no. It’s good to have, but not a must-have,” he said. No projects have been cancelled, only reprioritized. NEOM remains one of the six ecosystems, but its focus is shifting toward industrial infrastructure and data centre hubs in support of Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions.

80/20: The Domestic Tilt

The most consequential number in the new strategy is the target allocation split: 80% domestic, 20% international, down from roughly 30% international at the peak of PIF’s global dealmaking phase. International investment in absolute dollar terms is still expected to grow, with total annual capital deployment targeted at $70 billion after 2025 and a 2030 AUM target of approximately $2.7 trillion.

PIF’s appetite for large international deals has not disappeared. The fund recently led a consortium to acquire Electronic Arts for $55 billion, backed Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery, and, through Savvy Games Group, agreed to acquire Moonton from ByteDance at a $6 billion valuation. A PIF affiliate also committed an additional $550 million to electric vehicle maker Lucid Group.

From Capital Source to Catalyst

The most important conceptual shift in the new strategy is how PIF defines its own role. The fund is moving from primary capital source to a catalyst for broader private investment. Since its inception, PIF has established approximately 100 companies. As those portfolio companies mature, the fund intends to tap outside investors through vehicles including IPOs, positioning Tadawul as the natural exit and co-investment platform. Future deployment is expected to flow increasingly from portfolio companies themselves rather than direct sovereign injections.

The Investor Read

For North American investors, the new strategy has three practical implications. The six priority ecosystems will see sustained capital flows tied to hard deadlines, not discretionary spending. The narrowing from 13 sectors to six creates cleaner entry points for foreign co-investors, with Al-Rumayyan explicitly inviting partners to invest “in high-quality assets and ecosystems, alongside PIF.” And the de-prioritization of headline megaprojects replaces narrative noise with a more legible, return-oriented framework. A fund managing toward returns under genuine fiscal pressure is a more serious counterparty than one writing blank checks.

Market Snapshot

Chart Of The Week

Saudi Arabia ranks third globally in generative AI adoption among university students, with 89% of students using AI tools to support their studies in 2025, up from 62% in 2023. That places the Kingdom ahead of Canada (79%), Australia (77%), and well ahead of the United States and United Kingdom, both at 67%. The 27 percentage point jump over two years reflects the rapid pace at which AI is being embedded into Saudi Arabia’s education system, underpinning the broader talent pipeline the Kingdom is building to support its AI infrastructure ambitions.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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US & Iran Announce Two Week Ceasefire - What This Means for Saudi Arabia

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:27:59 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

The Strait of Hormuz is reopening. Saudi Arabia never fired a shot to get here.

On April 8, President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, agreeing to suspend US attacks on the condition that Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz to marine traffic. Iran confirmed it would allow safe passage for two weeks, provided vessels coordinate with Iranian armed forces. After nearly six weeks of the most severe oil market disruption in modern history, the world’s most important energy chokepoint is tentatively back open.

For Saudi Arabia, this moment is the payoff of a deliberate strategy.

The Kingdom spent $78 billion on its military in 2025, the seventh-highest defence budget in the world for a country of 35 million people, and used none of it. While Iran launched retaliatory strikes on Saudi assets and the Strait remained effectively closed, Riyadh stayed out of the shooting war entirely. No direct military involvement. No escalation. Just execute the contingency plan that was built years in advance.

That contingency was the East-West Pipeline. Running from the oil-producing Eastern Province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, it bypasses Hormuz entirely. Saudi Arabia ran it at full capacity throughout the conflict, moving 7 million barrels per day through the pipeline, with 5 million barrels per day of crude leaving through Yanbu and an additional 700,000 to 900,000 barrels per day of oil products on top of that. No other Gulf producer had anything close to this infrastructure. It is one of the concrete reasons oil prices did not reach the crisis-level highs of previous supply shocks, even as Brent traded above $108 a barrel last week.

At the same time, Aramco set the official selling price for Arab Light crude loading in May at a record $19.50 premium above the Oman/Dubai benchmark, a $17 jump in a single month, the highest premium ever recorded in Saudi pricing history. The Kingdom priced its available barrels accordingly and collected the premium while others scrambled.

Now the calculus shifts. With Hormuz tentatively reopening, that record premium will come under pressure as physical supply constraints ease. The IPO pipeline that investment bankers had advised companies to pause now has a two-week window of stability to watch. TASI, which closed Q1 2026 up 6.45% year to date and held positive throughout the conflict while every other index in the region fell, has a new catalyst.

The ceasefire is fragile, explicitly temporary, and built on a two-week window with no guarantee of extension. Iran struck Kharg Island, its own key oil export hub, was targeted by US strikes just hours before the deal was announced. The situation remains volatile.

But the direction of travel matters for investors. Saudi Arabia enters the ceasefire period having protected its export capacity, maintained its credit ratings, kept its capital markets open, and stayed out of a war happening on its doorstep. That is not luck. That is the structural advantage of a country that has spent a decade building resilience into its economy, and it is exactly what North American investors should be paying attention to.

Did You Know??

France, the world’s most visited country, welcomed 102 million international tourists in 2025. Saudi Arabia welcomed roughly 30 million international visitors in 2024, up from near zero when it opened to leisure tourism in 2019. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 target is 70 million international visitors by 2030. If it gets there, it would rank among the top five most visited countries in the world in just over a decade of being open.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

On March 30, 2026, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand met with Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Riyadh, issuing a joint press statement that covered both the depth of the bilateral relationship and a shared position on the Iran conflict.

The statement was notable for its directness. Both sides condemned Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states, called on Iran to immediately cease hostilities, and stressed the need for compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2817 (2026). Canada also affirmed solidarity with the Kingdom and acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s role in facilitating the return of Canadian citizens from the region, a quiet but meaningful diplomatic signal.

On the economic side, the two ministers noted bilateral trade exceeding SAR 12 billion in 2024, flagged ongoing negotiations toward a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA), and identified priority sectors for deeper collaboration, including trade, investment, AI, mining, space, tourism, education, and pharmaceuticals. The second Canada-Saudi Arabia Education Partnership Forum was convened in Toronto on the same day.

For North American investors, the timing of this visit matters. Canada’s most senior diplomat travelled to Riyadh in the middle of an active regional conflict, not despite it. The joint condemnation of Iranian aggression, Canada’s reaffirmation of readiness to cooperate on regional stability, and the continued forward motion on FIPA negotiations all point in the same direction: the Canada-Saudi relationship is accelerating, not pausing, under pressure.

With more than 150 Canadian companies already active in the Kingdom and two-way trade at $4 billion annually, Saudi Arabia is increasingly a priority market for Canadian business, particularly as Ottawa actively diversifies its trade relationships away from the United States under Prime Minister Carney’s government.

News

Ceasefire Takes Effect as US and Iran Prepare for Talks

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 8, with Iran confirming it will allow safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz via coordination with its armed forces. The deal, brokered by Pakistan, came hours before Trump’s deadline to launch what he called massive strikes on Iranian infrastructure. Both sides claimed victory. Peace talks are expected in Islamabad on Friday, with VP JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner leading the US delegation. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry welcomed the ceasefire, commending Pakistan’s mediation efforts. The truce is explicitly temporary, Israel said it is not bound by it and continues operations in Lebanon, and shipping experts cautioned that a return to normal Hormuz traffic will not be immediate.

PIF Eyes $5 Billion Anchor Stake in SpaceX IPO

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is in discussions to take a $5 billion anchor position in SpaceX’s anticipated IPO, according to Reuters sources. The investment would partly protect PIF’s existing sub-1% stake from dilution as SpaceX targets a record-breaking $75 billion raise, which would surpass Saudi Aramco’s own 2019 IPO as the largest in history. SpaceX has confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the SEC and is targeting a market launch later this year. The talks deepen a relationship that already includes PIF’s $3 billion investment in xAI via its AI subsidiary HUMAIN, and a 500-megawatt data center partnership in the Kingdom. No final decisions have been made.

Saudi Arabia’s $30 Billion Stadium Build Is Just Getting Started

Saudi Arabia is preparing for one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in sports history ahead of the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Of the 15 stadiums required to host the tournament, 11 have yet to be built. Industry estimates place stadium-related construction spending alone at $25 to $30 billion, with total ecosystem investment across transport, hospitality, energy, and logistics running significantly higher.

At the PIF Private Sector Forum in February 2026, Investment Minister Khalid Al Falih confirmed the World Cup and Expo 2030 now sit at the top of PIF’s funding stack, the two most protected capital channels in the Kingdom’s revised investment hierarchy. Unlike the open-ended giga-projects that have seen timelines stretch and budgets compress, the World Cup has a fixed delivery deadline that cannot move. That makes it one of the most predictable and time-bound capital deployment pipelines in Saudi Arabia right now.

For investors, the read-through is sector-specific. Construction, logistics, hospitality, and infrastructure companies with Saudi exposure are looking at a multi-year demand runway that is explicitly government-guaranteed. With the broader PIF strategy shifting toward return-focused and deadline-driven deployment, the World Cup buildout is exactly the kind of project that fits the new framework.

Spotlight: Saudi Aviation Faces Its Biggest Test Yet

Saudi Arabia has spent years building one of the world’s most ambitious aviation networks. Now, with a regional conflict overhead, a Hajj season around the corner, and a record-setting fleet expansion underway, the system is being stress-tested in real time.

The infrastructure held, for now

When hostilities began on February 28, Saudi airports absorbed the initial shock better than most expected. Between late February and mid-March, the Kingdom’s four major hubs handled more than 120 diverted flights from neighbouring carriers forced to redraw routes around closed airspace. Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam, and Madinah collectively processed that overflow, aided by years of targeted investment: roughly $3.8 billion into King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, $1.5 billion into King Khalid in Riyadh, and hundreds of millions more across Eastern Province and Terminal 1 expansions. The Kingdom also benefits from something its Gulf neighbours cannot match: geographic scale. Larger airspace means more routing flexibility, and in the early weeks of disruption, that mattered.

The numbers behind the resilience are real. Saudi airports handled 140.9 million passengers in 2025, a 9.6% increase over 2024, marking the Kingdom’s third consecutive year of record growth. Jeddah alone processed 53.4 million. The Kingdom now connects to 176 international destinations, a 78% increase over pre-pandemic levels. National carriers have more than 500 aircraft on order.

Then the friction showed

By late March, the stress was visible. Flight-tracking data from March 22 showed nearly 300 disrupted flights across the four major hubs, including 39 cancellations in a single day. International carriers began pricing in risk. KLM, Cathay Pacific, and Lufthansa suspended or reduced services to Riyadh and Dammam, with some extensions running into October. Flynas suspended several GCC routes through mid-April, leaving Saudia to carry the regional load on its own.

As Richard Maslen, head of analysis at CAPA Centre for Aviation, put it: the challenge has shifted from scale to flexibility. A network designed to absorb traffic volume efficiently faces a different kind of pressure when disruption is sustained and unpredictable rather than short and recoverable.

The Hajj collision

The harder test is coming. International arrivals for the 2026 Hajj season begin April 18, one of the single largest coordinated passenger surges anywhere in the world. The system will enter its busiest period while still managing conflict-related disruptions, reduced international carrier capacity, and rerouted traffic patterns. Saudi airports have handled Hajj successfully for years, but rarely against this kind of backdrop.

The expansion continues regardless

None of this has slowed the Kingdom’s aviation ambitions. Saudia is in early discussions with Boeing and Airbus for a purchase of at least 150 narrowbody and widebody jets, which could be the carrier’s largest order yet. The deal would both replace the aging fleet and expand capacity as Saudia focuses increasingly on religious pilgrimage traffic while Riyadh Air targets the premium tourism market.

The 2026 Future Aviation Forum is also scheduled for Riyadh on April 20 to 22, bringing more than 11,000 global aviation leaders together under the theme “Unlocking Global Growth, Designing the Future Sky.” The 2024 edition produced over 100 agreements and $20 billion in deals. GACA confirmed this week that the 2028 and 2030 editions will also be delivered in partnership with a PIF-majority-owned operator, signalling long-term institutional commitment to the forum as a capital platform.

The investor read-through

Saudi aviation is not just an infrastructure story. It is increasingly an equity story. The sector is on track to contribute SAR 75 billion to the national economy by 2030, up from $21.3 billion today. With airport privatization underway across 27 facilities, fleet orders flowing to both Boeing and Airbus, and Riyadh Air still awaiting its public debut, the capital markets dimension of this sector is building quietly alongside the physical one. The conflict has introduced real pressure. It has also exposed which parts of the system are genuinely robust, and which parts will need further investment to hold up under sustained stress.

Market Snapshot

Chart Of The Week

The debt-to-GDP ratio is the ratio between a country’s government debt and its gross domestic product (GDP).

World Economics has upgraded each country’s GDP, presenting it in Purchasing Power Parity terms with added estimates for the size of the informal economy and adjustments for out-of-date GDP base year data.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

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War in Iran Doesn’t Impact Consumer Spending in KSA

Saudi Market Monitor — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:10:20 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner: Eid Mubarak from Saudi Market Monitor

Eid al-Fitr 2026 arrived on Friday, March 20, marking the end of 30 days of Ramadan and the beginning of one of the most celebrated moments in the Islamic calendar. Saudi Arabia declared a four-day public holiday starting March 18, and across Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, and Madinah, the Kingdom paused to gather, give, and celebrate.

For North American readers less familiar with the rhythm of Saudi life, Eid al-Fitr is not simply a religious observance. It is one of the largest consumer and cultural events in the Arab world, and in Saudi Arabia, it moves serious money.

This Ramadan season, total consumer spending is estimated to have reached 65 billion riyals ($17.3B USD), up 12% over the same period in 2025. In the week ending March 7 alone, point-of-sale transactions across the Kingdom hit SAR 16.1 billion ($4.3B USD), with over 226 million individual transactions recorded, according to SAMA data. Clothing, gifts, and food dominated spending, and the Eidiyah gifting tradition, in which elders give money to younger family members during Eid, represents an estimated SAR 4.5 billion ($1.2B USD) market on its own.

Ramadan in Saudi Arabia is also a major season of giving. At the Two Holy Mosques, more than 33 million iftar meals were served across Masjid al-Haram and Masjid an-Nabawi, alongside crowds that totalled 96 million+ visits in the first 20 days. And charity is scaling digitally: the Ehsan platform’s national Ramadan campaign raised SR 1.757B ($469M) across 26.5M transactions, channelling support into healthcare, education, and social welfare.

E-commerce told an equally compelling story. Online spending during Ramadan 2026 reached an estimated SAR 9.2 billion ($2.45B USD), representing 14% of total seasonal spending. That share was just 8% in 2022. The shift is not incidental. It reflects a Saudi consumer base that is younger, more digitally native, and increasingly comfortable spending online at scale.

For investors, the consumer story matters. Vision 2030’s diversification thesis has always rested on the idea that Saudi Arabia can build a domestic economy that does not rise and fall with oil. Ramadan and Eid data suggest that bet is paying off. A holiday season that generates $17.3B USD in consumer activity, with e-commerce doubling its share in four years, is not an emerging market footnote. It is a structural shift worth tracking.

Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating. Saudi markets resume their regular schedule this week.

Did You Know??

Saudi Arabia’s e-payment adoption rate has grown from 57% in 2021 to over 79% in 2025, according to SAMA data. During Ramadan 2026, e-commerce accounted for an estimated 14% of total seasonal consumer spending, up from just 8% in 2022. The Kingdom’s Vision 2030 target is to reach 100% cashless transactions.

The Bridge Between North America & KSA

Brunswick Exploration (TSXV: BRW) - Canada’s First Hard-Rock Lithium Explorer in Saudi Arabia

Brunswick Exploration Inc. (TSXV: BRW), a Montreal-based junior explorer, in late 2025, they became the first hard-rock lithium company to launch a systematic, country-wide lithium exploration program in Saudi Arabia, after being awarded an 8,467-hectare license near Buraydah, roughly 450 km east of Riyadh, in a region with little to no prior lithium exploration history.

The Saudi program fits neatly into Brunswick’s year-round strategy. Prospecting in the Kingdom runs during the colder months when field conditions in Canada and Greenland make work difficult, giving the company an exploration engine that runs twelve months of the year. CEO Killian Charles has described Saudi Arabia as a jurisdiction with favourable geology, exceptional road access, and a pro-mining government actively building a domestic lithium processing industry under Vision 2030.

The company has been moving quickly. In February, Brunswick appointed a VP of International Projects, flagging the Saudi program as a key driver of the new role. Then on March 6, it launched an upsized private placement to fund its international push. On February 23rd, Brunswick closed the final tranche of that offering, raising $5,445,000 CAD in total, with proceeds earmarked for exploration in Saudi Arabia, Quebec, and Greenland. The Saudi prospecting campaign is now set to begin in H1 2026.

For North American investors, Brunswick offers a ground-floor look at what Saudi Arabia’s mining opening looks like for a small-cap Canadian junior. The Kingdom is not just courting the Barricks and Ivanhoe Electrics of the world. It is opening doors at the grassroots stage, and Brunswick is among the first Canadian companies walking through them.

Ticker: BRW (TSXV) | HQ: Montreal, QC | Saudi License: 8,467 ha near Buraydah | Campaign Start: H1 2026

News

The Conflict Continues, and Saudi Arabia Continues to Manage It

Since our last edition, the situation has evolved, but the broader picture for Saudi Arabia remains consistent with what we outlined on March 12. The Kingdom’s major economic hubs, population centers, and capital markets continue to operate. Daily life across most of the country is proceeding normally.

Saudi Arabia’s air defense systems have continued to intercept the vast majority of incoming threats, and Aramco’s East-West pipeline diversion to Red Sea terminals remains the primary export route while Gulf shipping lanes stay disrupted.

The most notable diplomatic development since our last edition came on March 21, when Riyadh expelled five Iranian diplomats, including the military attaché, citing continued attacks on Saudi territory. The Foreign Ministry’s statement was firm but measured, reaffirming the Kingdom’s commitment to sovereignty while leaving diplomatic channels open.

On the broader conflict, Trump signalled this week that he is considering winding down operations and extended a deadline on further strikes to allow for diplomacy. No ceasefire has been confirmed as of publication, but the direction of travel is being watched closely. For investors, Morgan Stanley upgraded Saudi Arabia to Overweight in its EEMEA equity strategy this month, pointing to oil price exposure, light global EM positioning, and riyal peg stability as key supports. Saudi equities have continued to hold their ground.

Ma’aden Posts Record Year as Saudi Mining Ambitions Take Shape

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden, Tadawul: 1211) reported FY2025 revenue of $10.3B (+19% YoY), EBITDA of $4.3B (+30%), and net profit of $2.0B, a 156% jump year over year. Results were driven by record phosphate production, near-record aluminum output, and higher commodity prices across all three of its main product lines. CEO Bob Wilt called it “a great year for Maaden’s strategic growth,” pointing to an accelerating exploration program and continued production scale-up as the company deepens its role as a cornerstone of Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy.

Spotlight: PIF’s Next Chapter - From Scale to Returns

For the first decade of Vision 2030, the Public Investment Fund operated with a clear mandate: build fast, build big, and use sovereign capital to fill gaps the private sector would not. That phase is closing. The next one looks meaningfully different.

PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan has confirmed the fund is finalizing a revised 2026-2030 strategy, with a fuller version expected this spring. The direction is already clear. Capital spending is expected to be cut by up to 15 percent. The emphasis is shifting from launching new sectors to accelerating growth within sectors that already exist. And for the first time, the fund is explicitly framing itself as a returns-driven vehicle rather than a development engine.

The numbers behind the shift are striking. Total construction contracts awarded in Saudi Arabia fell to below $30 billion in 2025, down nearly 60 percent from the $71 billion recorded in 2024. PIF’s share of those awards dropped from around 38 percent to just 14 percent. This is not a retreat from ambition. It is a recalibration toward quality of spend over volume of spend.

At the PIF Private Sector Forum in February, Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih made the new hierarchy explicit. Expo 2030 and the 2034 FIFA World Cup sit at the top of the funding stack. These are time-bound, globally visible events with fixed delivery deadlines, exactly the kind of projects that attract private capital and generate near-term economic return. As one source with direct knowledge of the tenders pipeline put it: “No contract of significance is going to be awarded this year unless it’s got the words Expo or World Cup.”

Beyond the two flagship events, capital is being concentrated in sectors with clear return profiles: AI and digital infrastructure, mining and critical minerals, housing, aviation, and energy transition. Open-ended, long-horizon giga-project components are being deprioritized or placed on hold.

For investors, the recalibration carries a constructive read-through. A PIF that is more returns-focused is a PIF that is more predictable, more commercially legible, and more aligned with how institutional capital actually allocates. The shift toward private sector co-investment also opens doors that were harder to access when PIF was the sole financier and decision-maker across its portfolio.

The revised strategy arrives against a backdrop of genuine fiscal pressure. Saudi Arabia is projected to run a budget deficit of approximately 3.3 percent of GDP in 2026, and the current regional conflict has added further strain. But the direction of PIF’s evolution, toward discipline, selectivity, and return-generation, was set before these pressures arrived. The current environment is accelerating a recalibration that was already underway.

The full strategy is expected this spring. When it lands, it will be one of the more consequential documents in Saudi capital markets this year.

Market Snapshot

IPO Watch: Saudi Arabia’s First 2026 Listing Holds its Ground

Saleh Abdulaziz Al Rashed & Sons (Tadawul: 1324) made its Tadawul Main Market debut on March 11, becoming the first new GCC listing since the regional conflict began. The Riyadh-based quarrying and construction materials company, founded in 1975, operates seven quarries and 17 wholesale distribution outlets across the Kingdom. The business reported a strong FY2025, with revenues up 23% and net profit up 54%, reflecting sustained demand tied directly to Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure and Vision 2030 construction pipeline.

Offer size: 5.58M shares (30% of share capital, 100% secondary)
Final offer price: SAR 45 ($12 USD)
Implied market cap at listing: SAR 837M ($223M USD)
Proceeds: SAR 251M ($67M USD) to selling shareholders
Institutional oversubscription: 67.7x | Retail oversubscription: 161%
Debut performance: Shares surged as much as 20% intraday, closing up approximately 14%
Financial advisor: ANB Capital

What matters for investors: This is the only completed Main Market IPO of 2026, and its strong debut during an active regional conflict carries a real signal. Investment bankers have broadly advised companies to delay launches until conditions stabilize, and by this point last year, at least three sizeable flotations had already reached the market. The fact that a quality issuer at a disciplined valuation attracted 67x institutional demand and gained on debut suggests Tadawul’s underlying investor appetite remains intact even under pressure. The broader pipeline continues to build, with the CMA reviewing 40 active applications and PIF’s eight-company queue targeting later in the year. Expect a more active issuance cycle once the window reopens.

Chart Of The Week

While regional conflict typically sends emerging market equities lower, TASI has risen +2.24% since hostilities began on February 28, making it the only index in this comparison to finish in positive territory. Rising oil prices have acted as a tailwind for Saudi-listed companies, partially offsetting global risk-off sentiment. All other indices in this chart are down between 6% and 11% over the same period.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.

Read Our Last Newsletter Here:

Volatility in the Kingdom - Saudi Market Demonstrates Resilience

Saudi Market Monitor — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:04:48 GMT

Written and published by Blink Capital, this newsletter brings investors timely insights into Saudi Arabia’s capital markets, policy shifts, and investment opportunities.

Inside this Issue:

Social Corner

Before this edition, we want to acknowledge the developments unfolding across the region.

Despite elevated geopolitical tensions and the ongoing conflict with Iran, much of Saudi Arabia continues to operate normally. The Kingdom’s major population centers and economic hubs remain stable, and daily life across most regions has seen limited disruption.

The holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, for example, remain active as pilgrims observe the final days of Ramadan. International air travel also continues to function largely as usual, with airports in Jeddah and Riyadh maintaining global connectivity and flights arriving from across multiple international destinations.

The areas most directly affected by recent developments are concentrated in the Gulf’s eastern corridor, including the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, particularly cities such as Dammam and Khobar. These locations sit closer to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint for global energy flows.

While heightened geopolitical risk may temporarily slow the pace of foreign capital inflows, our longer-term view remains constructive. Saudi Arabia’s leadership has demonstrated a strategic approach to managing its relationships with major global powers while prioritizing regional stability. Over time, we expect international investors to increasingly recognize this positioning, particularly as the Kingdom continues advancing its economic diversification agenda and strengthening its role in global energy and capital markets.

Saudi Market Monitor will continue to track the economic and market implications for the Kingdom as events evolve.

Did You Know??

Saudi equities are showing notable resilience despite the regional escalation.
The Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) rose 3.25% over the past five days, making it one of the few major global indices to finish the week in positive territory.
Global markets moved the other way:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.82%
S&P/TSX Composite Index: -1.87%
TAIEX: -4.26%
The reason is straightforward. Rising oil prices typically act as a tailwind for Saudi-listed companies, cushioning the impact of global risk-off sentiment.

Canadian Public Company Faces No Disturbance to its KSA Operations

NTG Clarity Networks Lands Multi-Year Saudi Smart City Mandate

NTG Clarity Networks (TSXV: NCI; OTC: NYWKF) has signed a three-year framework agreement with a vertically integrated Saudi real estate developer with a hospitality-heavy portfolio and ties to one of the Kingdom’s largest investment entities. Under the agreement, NTG will deliver offshore and onsite digital transformation and software development services, with a focus on IoT and Smart City solutions. The framework carries no minimum spend commitment but sets an initial ceiling of approximately CAD $18.2 million over three years at gross margins of around 36%, with initial purchase orders expected in the coming months.

NTG is not new to the Kingdom. The Toronto-based company, founded in 1992, operates on the ground in Saudi Arabia through NTG Clarity Arabia, a joint venture with Al Mozoon Group Architectural Contracting, a local Saudi partner. The company maintains a registered Riyadh presence, including a local address and Saudi phone numbers, reflecting an operating footprint that goes beyond typical Middle East market exposure. In 2025, NTG secured a separate three-year renewable framework agreement with a government-affiliated IT customer in the Kingdom, establishing a clear pattern of multi-year, framework-based contract wins with Saudi clients. Management has tied financial performance directly to the market, noting in its Q3 2025 update that strong year-over-year growth was driven by sustained client demand and consistent execution across Saudi Arabian operations.

The latest deal came through a referral from an existing customer inside the same investment group, reinforcing a relationship-driven growth model that is harder to replicate than a competitive tender win.

Why it matters: NTG’s expanding Saudi footprint is a clean read-through to the hospitality, mixed-use, and smart city buildouts that sit at the core of Vision 2030’s diversification agenda. For North American investors, it is a live example of a TSXV-listed company quietly embedding itself inside major Saudi investment ecosystems, using each engagement as a platform for the next.

Two things to watch as this agreement develops: the cadence and size of purchase orders as they begin to land, which will determine how quickly the ceiling converts into recognized revenue, and whether NTG continues to expand its footprint within the same investment group as its clients’ digital transformation needs scale.

It is worth noting that NTG addressed the regional situation directly in its press release. The company confirmed that its employees in the region are safe, its Egypt-based offshore delivery centers are operating normally, and it has not experienced any material disruption to operations or customer engagements. Management’s closing line is worth sitting with: “The signing of this three-year framework agreement shows that our customers are still focused on economic development and digitization despite the conflict in the region.” For investors watching whether Vision 2030 momentum can hold through a period of genuine regional stress, that is a tangible, ground-level data point.

Spotlight: The War and What It Means for Saudi Arabia

The conflict between the United States and Iran has shifted from a regional flashpoint to an operational reality for the Gulf.

Saudi Arabia has faced drone and missile activity targeting residential areas, military installations, and energy infrastructure. Air defense systems have intercepted multiple threats, including drones aimed toward Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter and Prince Sultan Air Base, as well as projectiles near the Shaybah oil field and the Al Kharj region.

So far, defensive systems have contained the majority of the risk.

Diplomatically, Riyadh continues to signal a preference for de-escalation. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has reiterated that Saudi Arabia supports a negotiated resolution while maintaining close coordination with allies.

Behind the scenes, Saudi diplomacy has remained active in encouraging dialogue, reinforcing the Kingdom’s role as a regional stabilizer even amid heightened tensions.

What It Means for Aramco

The conflict is testing global energy logistics, but Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure is built with contingencies in mind.

With traffic through the Strait of Hormuz facing disruption, Saudi Aramco has shifted exports west through the East-West pipeline to Red Sea terminals. Shipments from western terminals have surged to roughly 2.3 million barrels per day, about 50% higher than historical averages since 2016. The pipeline’s maximum capacity of 5 million barrels per day provides a strategic alternative route for exports when Gulf shipping lanes tighten.

Aramco has also entered the spot market, an unusual move for a company that typically relies on long-term contracts, offering tenders across several crude grades.

Markets have responded calmly. Aramco shares are up roughly 2.6% over the past four days, supported by stronger crude prices and the company’s announcement of a $3 billion share buyback alongside a 3.5% dividend increase. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate is trading near $86 per barrel, after briefly spiking above $119 earlier in the week before easing on hopes that diplomatic channels could limit the conflict’s duration.

What It Means for Saudi Capital Markets

The immediate casualty is the IPO calendar. Investment bankers say the listing window has effectively paused for now, with companies being advised to delay launches unless they are already deep in the regulatory process.

Valuations are adjusting accordingly. Deals that might have been priced at 15x earnings last year are now closer to 11 to 12x, according to bankers active in the market.

But the pipeline is not disappearing; it is building. With regulatory lead times stretching eight months or more, most companies engaging banks today are targeting late 2026 at the earliest. Expect a heavier issuance cycle once conditions stabilize, particularly across energy infrastructure, data centers, telecommunications, consumer brands, and real estate developers.

For companies that need capital sooner, the sukuk market remains a liquid and credible alternative.

News

Morgan Stanley Upgrades Saudi Arabia to Overweight, Cuts UAE and Egypt

Morgan Stanley has upgraded Saudi Arabia to Overweight in its EEMEA equity strategy, while downgrading the UAE and Egypt to Equal Weight.

The bank cites three main drivers:

Exposure to higher oil prices
Relatively light positioning by global emerging market funds
Currency stability from the riyal’s peg to the U.S. dollar

Strategists also noted that Saudi equities have historically outperformed during periods of dollar strength.

Within the UAE, the bank expects Abu Dhabi to prove more resilient than Dubai, given Dubai’s heavier exposure to tourism and real estate, sectors typically more sensitive to geopolitical volatility.

Market Snapshot

Chart Of The Week

WTI crude oil spiked from around $67 per barrel in late February to above $115 on March 8 as the conflict escalated and Strait of Hormuz traffic ground to a near halt, a move of roughly 70% in under two weeks. Prices have since pulled back to around $83 as diplomatic signals and Trump’s comments about a potential resolution cooled the initial panic bid. The chart captures the full arc of the market’s reaction: a steady pre-war climb through February, a near-vertical spike at peak disruption, and a volatile but meaningful pullback as traders weigh the difference between a short-term supply shock and a structural realignment of global oil flows. For Saudi Arabia, the direction of that next leg matters enormously, both for Aramco’s revenue trajectory and for the fiscal headroom behind Vision 2030.

Tadawul Trading Hours

The Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) operates Sunday through Thursday, aligning with the Kingdom’s official business week.

Times shown are with daylight saving adjustments, as North American markets are now operating on Eastern and Pacific Standard Time. Saudi Arabia does not observe daylight saving time.