More IPOs likely in GCC this year, but will not surpass value | ZAWYA MENA Edition

More IPOs likely in GCC this year, but will not surpass value | ZAWYA MENA Edition:

Led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, initial public offering (IPO) activity in the Gulf is expected to pick up in 2020, with around 16 companies likely to go public as compared to nine firms last year, analysts say.

Though the number of IPOs are expected to surpass last year's, the value is highly unlikely to cross 2019's figures in the foreseeable future due to Saudi Aramco's record fund-raising in the last quarter of 2019.

Nine companies in the region went public in 2019 as compared to 17 in the previous year. However, 2019 was headlined by the much-awaited IPO of Saudi Aramco announced in Q4, that eventually raised $29.4 billion and became the world's largest company at $2 trillion. As a result, capital issuances in the GCC last year through the IPO market jumped nearly 13 times year-on-year to $31.1 billion.

MR Raghu, managing director of Marmore Mena Intelligence, says there is better business optimism in the air for 2020, thanks to measures like the US-China trade war agreement, increase in foreign ownership limits, and initiatives to facilitate listing of family-owned businesses to go in for IPOs.