Saudi Arabia considers regulatory framework for follow-on share offerings

Saudi Arabia has invited the market to join a public consultation on a planned framework to enable large shareholders to float additional shares, said Abdullah Binghannam, deputy of financing and investment at Capital Market Authority (CMA).

The ‘FMO’ framework would be a process that is governed and regulated and a catalyst for increasing the free float of listed companies, Binghannam told an audience at the Saudi Capital Markets Forum in Riyadh.

“We had stc Group (Saudi Telecom Company) a few years ago and since we had this practice in the market we should regulate, because we are following a concept of trying to enable by regulations.”

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, raised $3.2bn from the sale of some of its shares in stc Group in 2021.

Saudi Arabia is also poised to sell more Aramco shares, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month, which could boost the country’s funding and its aim of shifting the economy away from oil.

The share sale could raise about $20bn, according to Bloomberg. Saudi Aramco has not confirmed the figure.

Read: Saudi Arabia poised for new Aramco share sale