Reuters/Diego Vara
Shares rise to SAR65 within hours
Fourth company to list in 2025
Umm Al Qura likely to be next
The share price of poultry producer Entaj has risen by 30 percent on its first day of trading, the maximum daily increase allowed on the Saudi stock exchange.
Entaj – formally known as the Arabian Company for Agricultural and Industrial Investment – is the fourth company to list on Saudi Arabia’s main market this year. Its shares jumped from SAR50 ($13.33) to SAR65 within hours on Monday.
It is the third company listed on the Tadawul this year to hit the exchange’s upper limit on its first day of trading, following Nice One and Derayah Financial.
CEO Raja Alharbi told AGBI in February that it launched the SAR450 million initial public offering to finance dividends for shareholders and to expand.
Food, particularly poultry, is a growing sector in the Saudi economy. The government in Riyadh is aiming for 90 percent self-sufficiency in poultry and other foods by 2030.
“Poultry, being the cheapest source of protein, always gets the highest attention,” Alharbi said at the time.
“That’s why you see poultry on the rise in investments and the noise it makes in terms of local production.”
The next listing on the Saudi exchange is likely to be property developer Umm Al Qura, which is building the Masar mixed-use project in Mecca.
The company has not yet announced a date for listing, but the retail offering for its SAR2 billion IPO was about 20 times oversubscribed.
