A recent report by Kamco Invest revealed the continued strong momentum of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the main stock exchanges in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in 2023.
Number of IPOs
The report revealed that the GCC countries witnessed 46 IPOs with total proceeds worth $10.79 billion last year. It indicated that the UAE is still in the lead with the highest IPO proceeds worth $6.07 billion. The UAE made up 56.3 percent of the total IPO proceeds through eight listings in the local markets.
The report highlighted that the average size of IPOs in the UAE financial markets amounted to about $759 million. That is much higher than the average size of listings in other GCC countries, which amounted to about $124 million.
Adnoc Gas
The largest IPO was that of Adnoc Gas which supplies around 60 percent of the UAE’s natural gas requirements. The company garnered $2.48 billion from the sale of 5.0 percent of its business through its primary market issuance. Meanwhile, Pure Health concluded the list of the three largest offerings in the GCC with $0.99 billion.
The report also indicated that Saudi Arabia dominated the number of IPOs with 35 offerings, in both the main market and the parallel market. Within Saudi Arabia, Nomu, the parallel market dominated the number of issuances with 27 deals, as compared to 8 deals for the main market, Tadawul.
Moreover, the report stated that ADES Holding Company IPO raised a total of $1.2 billion in proceeds on September 28 making it the second-largest IPO in 2023. It was listed on Tadawul in the Main Market and offered 338 million shares. The company was covered 9.8 times and the proceeds constituted 12 percent of total GCC IPO proceeds in 2023.
Read: Saudi Arabia’s PIF bonds received $20 billion in subscriptions
Sectoral division
The report stated that in terms of sectoral division, the basic materials, consumer services, and transportation sectors topped the list in terms of the number of deals, with 6 deals in each sector. Then, health services, pharmaceuticals, financial, technology, and energy followed with about 4 deals in each sector.
The Kamco report expected that the number of companies scheduled to be listed in GCC markets this year will range between 28 and 30 companies between announced and binding IPO issues.
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