MUST-READS

• Saudi Bond Spree Continues as Wealth Fund Taps Dollar Market

  Saudi Arabia’s bond spree continued Wednesday as its sovereign wealth fund sold $4 billion of dollar debt. The Public Investment Fund priced notes with maturities of five years and 9 1/2 years, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified sharing private information. The premiums above US Treasuries are respectively 95 and 110 basis points — both 30 basis points less than initial price talk. The tighter pricing occurred as orders topped $16 billion, excluding joint lead manager interest, the person said, with demand has been equally split across the two notes. The deal followed a $12 billion bond by the Saudi government earlier this month, while the PIF signed a $7 billion Islamic loan with 20 banks around the same time.

• Saudi Prince’s Firm Eyes TikTok Investment Amid Musk Speculation

  Kingdom Holding Company, led by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, is considering a potential investment in TikTok if co-founder and CEO of Tesla (TSLA, Financials) Elon Musk or other significant investors make a move to acquire the short-form video platform, according to statements made by CEO Talal al-Maiman to Al Arabiya Business, Saudi Arabia's state-owned news outlet. With an investment of over $1.89 billion, Kingdom Holding is a significant owner in Musk's social networking platform X. Contributing $400 million (SAR 1.5 billion) during its Series C financing, the business has also helped Musk's artificial intelligence effort, xAI.

• Syria’s new leaders turn to Islamic law in effort to rebuild Assad’s police
  Syria's new authorities are using Islamic teachings to train a fledgling police force, a move officers say aims to instil a sense of morality as they race to fill a security vacuum after dismantling ousted president Bashar al-Assad's notoriously corrupt and brutal security forces. Police they brought into Damascus from their former rebel enclave in the northwestern region of Idlib are asking applicants about their beliefs and focusing on Islamic sharia law in the brief training they offer recruits, according to five senior officers and application forms seen by Reuters. "There are many Syrians who will find this concerning," said Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a Middle East-focused think tank, when asked about Reuters' findings. "Not just minorities - Christians, Alawites, Druze - but also quite a lot of Sunni Muslims in places like Damascus and Aleppo, where you have a fairly large secular, cosmopolitan population that's not interested in religious law."

• Saudi crown prince says kingdom intends to invest $600 billion in US during call with Trump

  The comments from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reported early Thursday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, came in a phone call with Trump. “The crown prince affirmed the kingdom’s intention to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years, in the amount of $600 billion, and potentially beyond that,” the report said. The readout did not elaborate on where those investments and trade could be placed. The U.S. in recent years has increasingly pulled away from relying on Saudi oil exports, which once was the bedrock of their relationship for decades. Saudi sovereign wealth funds have taken large stakes in American businesses while also looking at sports as well. “The first foreign trip typically has been with the U.K. but ... I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our products,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office. “If Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another $450 billion or $500 — we’ll up it for all the inflation — I think I’d probably go.”

• James Turrell Is Bringing His Iconic Skyspaces to the Saudi Arabian Desert

  An exhibition on view as part of the AlUla Arts Festival showcases California Light and Space master James Turrell, and features some of his works that take up residence in art galleries as well as renderings for a giant new commission he is developing for the AlUla region of Saudi Arabia. For the upcoming Wadi AlFann commission, the artist will create a monumental succession of chambers joined by tunnels and stairs in the floor of a large canyon, in which visitors will experience “the thingness of light,” as the artist has described it. “I first visited the Wadi AlFann site in 2020,” said Turrell in a statement. “I was surprised that the sandstone formations looked very similar to those in Arizona. I was very familiar with that kind of landscape and strangely felt at home with doing work there.”

• Investcorp expands its AUM in Asia and reaches $2.3bn in funds raised across

  Investcorp, a leading global alternative investment firm, is pleased to announce that it has been chosen by a large Asian institution to invest in South-East Asia, worth over $100 million. This adds to $2.2 billion raised by Investcorp from Asian institutional investors in the last 18 months as it continues to build its global distribution system and deliver fundraising capabilities to investors across key markets in Asia.

• Saudi Capital Market Brief: Rising Issuance Levels Are Just The Start

  We expect Saudi issuers to continue tapping the global and the local capital markets to finance Saudi Vision 2030. While this appears manageable in the short term, we are keeping an eye on the leverage build-up in the medium-to-long term. We still expect leverage to remain manageable in our base-case scenario, with private-sector debt to GDP staying below the 100% mark in the next 12-24 months. Saudi companies have led the show until now, but the dynamics are changing.  Saudi companies, including government-related entities, account for around two-thirds of U.S. dollar-denominated nongovernmental issuances on average over the past five years, but we expect banks to play a bigger role going forward. External leverage is building.   Saudi issuers, including the government, have raised more than $130 billion in U.S. dollar-denominated issuances over the past five years. This comes on top of the $144 billion that they raised locally in Saudi riyal during the same period, with the implementation of Saudi Vision 2030 explaining part of this flurry. While the government accounts for around 60% of these issuances, Saudi Vision 2030 has also created significant opportunities in the non-oil economy and the banking system.

• Saudi Arabia Participates in Ministerial Meeting in New York to Back Yemeni Government

  The Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen (SDRPY) has participated in the international ministerial meeting to support the Yemeni government, held here in conjunction with the UN Security Council meeting and co-chaired by Yemeni Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak and British Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Hamish Falconer. SDRPY Director of Developmental Programs Dr. Hala Alsaleh underscored that Saudi Arabia's participation in the meeting reflects its ongoing commitment to supporting Yemen across various sectors. She highlighted the Kingdom's consistent efforts to foster peace and stability in Yemen through comprehensive development initiatives led by the program.

• Saudi labor courts issued 130,000 rulings last year, up 21% from 2023

  The Ministry of Justice said that labor courts across Saudi Arabia pronounced more than 130,000 judgments during the year 2024, and this figure records an increase of 21 percent compared to the previous year 2023. A total of 290,000 court sessions were held during the last year. The ministry said that labor courts contributed to shortening the average lifespan of a labor case to just 20 days, which is the period from the date of filing the case until it is closed. It added that the average number of sessions for closed cases was two sessions. The ministry stressed that consolidating the concept of institutionalization and the work of central departments such as the Case Preparation Center and the Case Audit Center have contributed to raising the courts’ achievement and speeding up the resolution of cases.

• Saudi National Bank Proposes 16 Million Share Buyback

  Saudi National Bank (SNB), the largest bank in Saudi Arabia by assets, has proposed the repurchase of up to 16 million treasury shares. The initiative, aimed at supporting the bank’s employees’ equity programme, highlights SNB’s commitment to empowering its workforce. The proposed buyback will be financed entirely through the bank’s internal resources, as disclosed in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange. Currently, treasury shares constitute 0.92% of the total shares designated for the equity programme. If approved, the buyback will further strengthen the programme’s foundation and align with the bank’s long-term growth strategy.

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