Saudi Arabia

Dr Suliaman Al Habib Medical Group, one of the largest private health companies in Saudi Arabia, has announced it is seeking to list on the Tadawul stock exchange. It is the first company to attempt an IPO there since the record listing of Saudi Aramco last December.

Saudi Arabia's Saline Water Conversion Corp (SWCC) signed a $426.5m-equivalent loan with a consortium of local lenders. The deal comes after a disappointing year for international lenders, who were dismayed at the lower than expected volumes of Saudi Arabian activity.

Zero-E the company that holds the wind, solar and thermal assets of Actividades de Construcción y Servicios has found a private buyer for its Spanish renewables assets, making an IPO unlikely.

Samba Financial Group sold its $500m seven year bond on Wednesday from a book of $2.3bn. A syndicate official on the deal said that follow-on demand from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia triple tranche print on Tuesday helped to propel the deal.

Saudi Arabia scored a triple tranche dollar deal inside its own curve on Tuesday, raising cash at seven, 12 and 35 years. Samba Financial Group has since followed its sovereign into the market with its own deal.

Two CEEMEA sovereigns are taking the plunge this week — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a triple tranche dollar benchmark and Romania with a dual tranche euro bond.

Robert "Bob" Fernandez, a veteran of EM debt capital markets, has joined Saudi Aramco's treasury.

A weekend of hostile rhetoric between Iran and the US has caused equity capital markets bankers to consider delaying new deals from the Middle East despite a healthy issuance pipeline, over fears that the two countries are gearing up for war.

Sources close to Saudi Aramco breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday, when trading in its shares accelerated, after a very slow and stuttering start the previous day. The action propelled the Saudi oil champion's stock higher, but more importantly for international investors, the more liquid flow should make it easier for them to buy the stock when it is added to MSCI's emerging markets index next week.

Saudi Aramco stock rose 10% on its first day of trading on the Saudi stock exchange on Wednesday, after its historic $25.6bn IPO last week. Aramco hit its daily limit for share price movement of 10% in its first trading hours, as a combination of local demand and scarce sellers drove the price higher.

Bankers in Doha this week were eager to start a World Cup funding run in Qatar, as concerns over the Gulf state’s conflict with Saudi Arabia began to dissipate.

Saudi Arabia has completed the largest IPO ever, the listing of its economic crown jewel, the oil producer Saudi Aramco. However, a deal sold almost entirely to local investors was a missed opportunity to secure international backing for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan for the country, writes Sam Kerr.