After approving highest increase ever in market..97 companies ‎add SR183 bln to capital, 42 others burn SR14 bln over 6 years – ‎Maaal reports

A monitoring of Maaal newspaper revealed that 118 companies listed on the Saudi stock market increased or decreased their capital for one or more times during the past six years, and the most prominent of these companies at the level of capital increase was the Saudi Telecom Company stc (which has the largest capital increase in the history of The Saudi Stock Exchange), Aramco, Al-Rajhi Bank, Saudi National Bank and Ma’aden, all of which increased their capital by SR 10 billion or more, while the top companies that reduced their capital were Zain Saudi Arabia and Nama Chemicals Co., which both reduced the capital more than SR 1 billion.

The Saudi Telecom Group “STC” announced yesterday, Tuesday, the raising of the group’s capital in the largest increase of capital in the history of the Saudi market, where the company will raise its capital by 30 billion riyals at once.

According to the monitor, 97 companies listed on the Saudi market increased their capital by about 182.78 billion riyals through 131 increase operations (28 companies raised their capital more than once), and the increase operations were generally divided into 69 increases through shares. With an amount of SR 121.94 billion, 5 companies (stc, Aramco, Al-Rajhi Bank, Maaden, and Al-Ahly of Saudi Arabia) acquired 67.49% of them, equivalent to 82.31 billion riyals (29% of them, or the equivalent of 23.75 billion for Al-Rajhi Bank alone, where it raised its capital twice via bonus shares).

Moreover, 36 companies increased their capital by subscribing rights issue, with a value of 22.881 billion riyals, the largest part of which was for Petro Rabigh, with a value of 7.95 billion riyals, equivalent to 34.74% of the total subscriptions to priority rights during the monitoring period. Zain Saudi Arabia comes in second spot with its capital increased by 4.5 billion riyals, or 19.67% of the rights issue subscriptions, and thus the two companies accounted for 54.41% of the total rights offerings.

In the third place come the companies that raised their capital through mergers. 6 companies that raised their capital with a value of 20.88 billion riyals, and the biggest’s share of them (97.3%) was each of the Saudi National Bank (SNB) with a value of 14.78 billion riyals, equivalent to 70.8%. Through the merger with Samba Financial Group, and the Saudi British Company (SABB) with a value of 5.55 billion riyals, or 26.6%, of the total capital increase through the merger, as it was through the merger with Alawwal Bank.

The fourth type of increase was through acquisition. 15 companies listed on the Saudi market raised their capital with a value of 10.68 billion riyals by making acquisitions, led by Sahara International Petrochemical Co. through Sipchem’s acquisition of Sahara Company, with a value of 3.67 billion riyals, then the Saudi Industrial Investment Group to acquire Petrochem, with a value of 3.05 billion riyals, bringing together a share of 62.8%, or a value of 6.71 billion riyals.

As for the fifth type of increase, it was through the transfer of debts, and it was carried out by three companies, namely: Emaar the Economic City, with a value of 2.83 billion riyals, by transferring debts owed by the company to the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and converting it to about 283.33 million new ordinary shares granted to the Fund in full. The second company is Ma’aden, and it increased its capital by an amount of 621.13 million riyals, by transferring a debt owed to the PIF, amounting to 797 million dollars (equivalent to 2.99 billion Saudi riyals), by issuing 62,112,885 new shares for the PIF, at an issue price of 48.08 riyals per share.

The third company was Jabal Omar which increased its capital by 24.22% for the purpose of transferring all debts owed by it to the Alinma Makkah Real Estate Fund (in its capacity as the creditor) by issuing (0.442) new ordinary shares in the company to the fund’s unit holders for each unit they have it in the Fund.

The last way in which the companies raised their capital was the public offering, where two REIT funds raised their capital with a value of 682 million riyals, where the Al-Rajhi REIT fund increased by 396.56 million riyals, while the Saudi Jadwa REIT Fund raised its capital with a value of 285.09 million riyals.