Saudi Arabia is set to allow foreigners to own majority stakes in local companies. Currently there's a cap of 49% for listed companies but the Kingdom's Capital Market Authority is pushing for approval from other government stakeholders.

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority (CMA) is reviewing the longstanding rule that restricts foreign investors to owning no more than 49 percent of Saudi equities. While the exact new limit has not been disclosed, the CMA expects a decision before the end of the year. Any increase above 50 percent would mark a significant shift, enabling foreign investors to hold majority stakes in Saudi companies for the first time.

This potential policy change is seen as a major step in opening the Saudi market to global investors and could lead to increased weighting of Saudi equities in major MSCI indices. Such a move is expected to attract substantial passive investment inflows and may help revive the local stock market, which has recently underperformed.

Saudi Arabia plans to raise foreign ownership limit

Christine what do we know about this. It seems to be a really major development. Yeah. This is really a big step. So we had an opportunity to sit down exclusively with the CMA and we asked them point blank when will regulators lift this majority foreign ownership rule that has been in place for years. And as you said limits foreign investors to owning just 49 percent of Saudi equities. And what the CMA said was that a review is currently underway. And while there are many stakeholders that need to approve a lifting of this restriction they do expect that it is going to come before the end of the year. Now we do not know how much they will lift the restriction whether that means we see the 49 percent jump to 60 percent 70 percent. Maybe they go for it and do 100. But no matter how you look at it any move above 50 percent would be significant. And this is just the latest in a series of steps from the CMA to open up the Saudi market to foreign investors. So really this is this is one in a series of steps. But the most significant will be the first time ever that we would see foreigners allowed to own a majority of Saudi equities. And could this have an actual implication or bearings on the broader market as a whole. You know earlier this year we've been speaking of the underperformance of the to Dowell. Could this actually bring about a change in sentiment. Absolutely it could. So there are a couple of reasons why this is so significant. The first is it comes down to the weighting of Saudi Arabia and the MSCI indices. So Saudi Arabia is currently in the MSCI emerging market index index and also the All Country World Index. MSCI factors in a foreign inclusion factor when calculating the weighting of Saudi equities in its benchmarks. So by nature or by default if Saudi Arabia raises the foreign ownership limits then it means that Saudi equities will then have a stronger weighting in the MSCI benchmarks. That means that we will see more passive investment in the region possibly to the tune of billions of dollars. From what I'm hearing from investors and people that have been reaching out to me in the last 24 hours. So we're talking about a potential boost in inflows. And I think there's also a big psychological barrier here that we would be removing investors knowing that they could own a majority of a Saudi company. You know a couple of people have told me well maybe that paves the way for more cross listings. Maybe this paves the way for more M&A. And it certainly will will will prompt investors to take a look at this market a bit more seriously. And I think that's exactly what the Saudis want here after a month of underperformance for the stock market. Really this has the potential to jolt the market back to life.

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