Bloomberg, the US economic agency, revealed that MBC Group, the largest television network in the Middle East, is working on an initial public offering in the Saudi market.
The agency quoted people it said were informed - it did not name them - that the Saudi TV group is working with the bankers "JP Morgan" and "HSBC Holdings" for its initial public offering.
The sources stated that the listing of the group, in which the Saudi government owns 60% of its shares, may take place as soon as next year.
According to the same sources, the TV network may add more international or local banks to work on the offering at a later stage.
It was not immediately clear about the details of the offering, including the size of the subscription, evaluation and timing, while there was no comment from the group on this.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the "MBC Group", Walid Al-Ibrahim, one of the wealthiest Saudi businessmen, owns the rest of the group's shares (40%).
Al-Ibrahim was among dozens of billionaires detained at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh in 2017 as part of what the government called an anti-corruption campaign.
After exiting the "Ritz", the government took control of 60% of the group's shares, while Ibrahim retained his current share.
MBC was founded in London in 1991, and moved its headquarters to Dubai in 2002, and then to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in 2022.
The group, which launched the first privately owned Arab satellite channel, now includes 20 TV channels and a video streaming service, Shahid VIP.
The listing of MBC comes amid an IPO boom in the energy-rich Arab Gulf region, as regional stock markets rebounded due to high oil prices and an influx of investor funds.
Saudi Arabia accounted for the bulk of that in terms of the number of IPOs, with 22 listings in the kingdom this year out of 34 in the entire Middle East region, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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