Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) is selling a 10% stake in Saudi Tadawul Group, the owner and operator of the Kingdom's stock exchange, via an accelerated book-build offering, Reuters quoted a regulatory filing on Thursday.
PIF, a sovereign wealth fund with over $600 billion in assets, has hired HSBC and Morgan Stanley to help sell 12 million shares in Tadawul, 10% of the company's issued share capital, Reuters reported.
“The offering is in line with PIF’s strategy to recycle its capital and invest in emerging and promising sectors in the local economy,” PIF said in the statement.
The offer price will be determined on Friday and the sale will be executed through off-market negotiated deals before the market opens, it said.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (Salic), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the PIF has announced the acquisition of 9.2% stake in LT Foods Limited, a leading Indian basmati rice processing company via primary and secondary offering for SAR209 million ($56 million).
LT Foods Limited is a 70-year-old consumer food company, listed on the National Stock Exchange of India since December 2006 delivering quality rice and rice-based food brands in more than 60 countries.
Salic said the move was mainly aimed at building a solid long-term strategic partnership with LT Foods following its successful acquisition of a 30% stake in Daawat, one of LT Foods major rice processing units in India.
The company had recorded a consolidated revenue of around $715 million last year. Its flagship brands ‘Daawat’ and ‘Royal’ enjoy leading positions in India and US respectively, it added.
Separately, the Kingdom’s Industrial Production Index (IPI) grew 15.7% year-on-year (YoY) in September 2022. The IPI’s growth has been positive since May 2021, after a series of months that witnessed negative growth in 2019 and 2020 partially impacted by the effects of the global pandemic.
The index, calculated through an industrial production survey showed positive growth trends, driven by an increase in production activities of mining and quarrying, manufacturing, and electricity and gas supply, according to the General Authority for Statistics.
