Saudi Arabia’s Jamjoom Pharma to sell 30% stake in IPO

Saudi Arabia’s Jamjoom Pharmaceuticals Factory Company said it plans to sell a 30 per cent stake through an initial public offering (IPO) on the Saudi Exchange’s main market.

Jamjoom Pharma secured approval from the Saudi Capital Market Authority to offer 21,000,000 shares, representing 30 per cent of the company’s issued share capital, in December 2022.

The pharmaceuticals company said institutional bookbuilding will start on May 15, when the price range will also be announced and end on May 22. The retail subscription period will run from May 30 to June 1 and final shares allocation will be on June 7.

“The listing on the Saudi Exchange marks another important milestone in Jamjoom Pharma’s development journey,” said Tarek Hosni, CEO of Jamjoom Pharma.

“We are well positioned to realise our ambition of becoming a leading pharmaceutical manufacturing organization while providing customers with affordable, high-quality healthcare solutions across the Middle East and Africa region while continuing to aspire to extend our services to a broader international customer base.”

JPMorgan Saudi Arabia and Saudi Fransi Capital are financial advisers for the IPO. They are joined as underwriters and bookrunners by AlRajhi Capital. Saudi Fransi Capital is also a lead manager on the IPO.

Jamjoom joins IPO boom

Meanwhile, the Middle East IPO market has stood out as a bright spot globally as other regions have seen volumes plummet over concerns of high inflation and poorly performing stock markets.

Kuwait-based asset management firm, KAMCO Invest, said the IPO pipeline for 2023 remains strong and “based on our estimates at the start of the year the pipeline could range between 27-39 companies between announced and rumoured GCC IPO issuances”.

GCC IPOs raised $3.5bn during the first three months of 2023, marking a 12 per cent year-on-year decline in value compared to $4.6bn that was raised during the same period in 2022.

A report by Markaz shows that the UAE led the region in terms of IPO proceeds in the first quarter of the year, raising a total of $3.2bn from three offerings and recording an increase of 192 per cent in value compared to Q1 2022.

The UAE offerings constituted 91 per cent of total GCC IPO proceeds during the same period under review, with the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) witnessing the highest proceeds at $3bn through the offerings of ADNOC Gas and Presight AI.

ADNOC Gas raised $2.5bn via IPO in what is the world’s biggest flotation this year after the company increased the number of ordinary shares offered in the offering to 3.8 billion. Presight AI Holding shares soared 176 per cent on its trading debut on the ADX after the big data analytics firm raised $496m in an offering.

Saudi Exchange received 8 IPOs that raised a combined $72m, constituting 2 per cent of total GCC IPO proceeds. This represents a drop of 98 per cent YoY in value when compared to proceeds raised by Saudi IPOs in Q1 2022.

Read: Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC Gas surges on ADX trading debut