M&A Fever Has Yet to Break in the Gulf - Bloomberg

M&A Fever Has Yet to Break in the Gulf - Bloomberg:

From Dubai’s Burj Khalifa to Kuwait’s Al Hamra Tower, oil-rich Gulf economies built up their skylines in a hurry in the few years preceding the financial crisis. Now, as the price of the region’s most precious commodity languishes, a similarly frantic pace is on to merge some of the region’s banking and industrial behemoths.

Banks across the Gulf are leading a record wave of mergers and acquisitions as governments look for ways to stay competitive and battle slow growth. About a dozen lenders are involved in mergers or takeovers. The flow of deals has been gathering speed ever since the megamerger between two of Abu Dhabi’s largest banks in 2017 and the combination of three of the emirate’s investment firms that was completed last year.

In Saudi Arabia, the first bank merger in 20 years is under way, as well as what’s set to be the kingdom’s largest M&A deal: the acquisition of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) by Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Saudi Aramco) from the country’s sovereign wealth fund. This follows Saudi International Petrochemical Co.’s agreement last year to acquire Sahara Petrochemical Co. in an all-share deal valued at about $2 billion.