Forbes Middle East - English - June 2024 by Forbes Middle East

GENDER DIVERSITY IN MENA’S WORKPLACES

T H OU R L A T E

ESS NEW

AY CONNEC

SIN S

ASSET MANAGERS BETTING ON THE MIDDLE EAST

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

MENA'S 5 MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES MIDDLE EAST BUSINESSWOMEN GOING PUBLIC

YASSER ZAGHLOUL Group CEO of NMDC Group

“THE INTEGRATION OF AI AND DIGITALIZATION IS CRUCIAL.”

THE MIDDLE EAST’S

JUNE 2024 ISSUE 140

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES 2024 MENA’S BIGGEST PUBLIC COMPANIES HAVE HAD A TOUGH YEAR, BUT THEY’VE STILL SEEN THE TOTAL VALUE OF THEIR ASSETS RISE TO MORE THAN $4.9 TRILLION.

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6 I Sidelines Steady Reflection

By Claudine Coletti LEADERBOARD

WEALTH

8 I A Record Year For America’s Richest

1 CONTENTS

Self-Made Women 2024

It was a record-breaking year for these queens of capitalism, as their combined fortunes soared by nearly one-fourth to $154 billion and the minimum to make the list jumped more than 35%. By Kerry A. Dolan and Andrea Murphy BILLIONAIRES

10 I Billionaire Makers A total of 265 individuals joined Forbes’ World’s Billionaires this year, with some enjoying a significant surge in their wealth status. These four businesses generated the highest number of new billionaires in 2024. All net worths are as of May 27, 2024.

By Jamila Gandhi BUSINESS

11 I MENA’s 5 Most Profitable Companies Despite challenging circumstances, many companies have managed to maintain strong performance across various sectors. These were the five most profitable companies in MENA in 2023.

By Amr Abdelhamid MARKETS

12 I 7 Middle East Businesswomen Who

Took Their Firms Public

These leaders from our list of the Middle East’s 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2024 have led their companies onto stock markets.

By Sara Junaid

14 I Global Asset Managers Betting on

the Middle East

These global asset managers, hedge funds, and private equity firms have been expanding into the Middle East, accessing the region’s vibrant economic ecosystem and making bumper investments.

By Muhammad Addam LEADERSHIP

16 I Gender Diversity Gains Traction

in MENA Workplaces

MENA is witnessing a transformation in its approach to gender diversity and inclusion of women in the workplace. While there’s still a way to go, many companies are taking steps to create a more inclusive environment and diverse workforce.

By Julian Nabil CONTRARIAN

18 I Green Gas Giant Linde’s Sanjiv Lamba serves two masters: environmentalists and investors. Neither group has cause to complain.

By William Baldwin

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

74 22 I Wannabe Warren Thomas Gayner parlayed a stockbroker career into the top job at Virginia’s $16 billion Markel Group, a specialty insurer with a penchant for investing in stocks and privately owned businesses. Meet Richmond’s answer to the Oracle of Omaha. By Bob Ivry FEATURES

74 I Charged Up Thamer Al Muhid, Group CEO and Managing Director of Saudi Chemical Company Holding is leading a major restructuring as part of the firm’s strategic transformation strategy. With progress underway to boost production and localization, aligning with Vision 2030 is a top priority. By Jamila Gandhi

80 I A New Hospitality Hub Alison Grinnell, CEO of Ras Al Khaimah Hospitality Holding, is putting the small northern emirate on the map for tourists and residents. While up against fierce competition from its neighbors, RAK is making itself known. By Jamila Gandhi LIFESTYLE

86 I Traditional Markets: Where a Rich History

Meets a Prosperous Present

The vibrant and bustling souks and markets of the Middle East have long attracted traders, shoppers, and visitors. With many of these community hubs still in existence today, the role of traditional markets in MENA’s economies continues to be vital. By Fouzia Azzab

88 I Thoughts On Conflict JUNE 2024

THE MIDDLE EAST’S

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES 2024

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES 2024

CONTENTS

54 I Evolving Together Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of the Ooredoo Group, has been leading a new strategy for the Qatar-headquartered telecom since taking the helm in November 2020. Now, he’s cornering key areas for future growth, including telecom towers, data centers, and fintech. By Hagar Omran

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

June 2024

•

4 CONTENTS

Issue 140

INSIDE •

COVER STORY

24 New Shores Yasser Zaghloul, Group CEO of the NMDC Group, has spearheaded considerable growth for the company since taking the helm in 2009. While the group builds new islands, he’s building a global plan. By Layan Abo Shkier

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

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JUNE 2024

SIDELINES

FORBES MIDDLE EAST

Steady Reflection As we release our eleventh annual ranking of MENA’s top 100 listed companies, it would appear that the region’s biggest public entities have once again faced a challenging financial year. The total recorded sales, profits, and market caps of these 100 leading companies are all down compared to last year, by 5.1%, 13.5%, and 4.4%, respectively. While the total value of the assets they hold increased marginally by 5.4%, it seems that overall it’s not been a stellar 12 months. Still, IPO activity shows that companies’ appetites to list on the Middle East’s markets remain fairly steady, at least so far this year. According to EY’s MENA IPO Eye for Q1 2024, this region saw 10 IPOs in Q1, which matches Q1 last year, raising $1.2 billion. However, they saw proceeds decrease by a significant 66%. Nine of the 10 IPOs came from Saudi Arabia, raising $724 million. The remaining one came from Parkin Company PJSC, which was listed on the Dubai Financial Market, raising $429 million. The rest of this year should be a busy one for MENA’s stock exchanges, with 25 private companies having already announced their intention to IPO this year, including Lulu Group, Spinneys, and Etihad Airways. In April, the World Bank forecast in its MENA economic update that the region’s economy will grow at a rate of 2.7% in 2024, a slight increase from the 1.9% seen in 2023. Globally, 287 IPOs raised a total of $287 billion in Q1 2024 according to the EY report, which shows both a 7% decline in IPO activity and a 7% rise in funds raised. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and the fact that this is an election year for several major economies around the world, including the U.S., the U.K., India, and the EU, continue to impact markets worldwide. However, the OECD’s latest economic outlook still forecasts growth of 3.1% this year, which matches that seen in 2023. Among our inspiring content this month, we look across MENA markets to highlight the region’s most profitable companies and champion some of the region’s most influential female leaders who have taken their companies public. We also speak to the heads of two of the largest companies in the Middle East as they respond to the current economic environment by refreshing their business models. Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of Qatar’s Ooredoo Group, is working with other telecom groups to consolidate their towers to maximize cost and operational efficiencies. Meanwhile, Yasser Zaghloul, Group CEO of Abu Dhabi’s NMDC Group, is creating two new holding companies to oversee the group’s healthcare and marine dredging businesses. Hope you enjoy this data-packed issue.

—Claudine Coletti, Managing Editor

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

INNOVATING SINCE 2010 JUNE 2024 ISSUE 140

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Wealth

A Record Year For America’s Richest Self-Made Women 2024 It was a record-breaking year for these queens of capitalism, as their combined fortunes soared by nearly one-fourth to $154 billion and the minimum to make the list jumped more than 35%. Pizza. Packaging. Pop music. The country’s most successful women have found dozens of ways to prosper. Nearly three-fourths of the 100 women on the list started or confounded a company, while 22 are chief executives or co-chief executives. A healthy stock market helped push the combined fortunes of members of Forbes’ tenth annual list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women to a record $154 billion, up nearly 25% from last year. The minimum to qualify rose to $300 million, up from $225 million last year, the highest since Forbes started tracking the top 100 in 2020. Seventythree members are richer than they were in 2023, while just ten saw their fortunes fall. Billionaire Diane Hendricks keeps the top spot for the seventh consecutive year with a record $20.9 billion fortune, up from $15 billion last year. She owns roofing and building supply distributor ABC Supply, which she founded with her husband Ken (d. 2007) in 1982. Hendricks has chaired the company since 2007; under her leadership revenue has ballooned from $2.6 billion to $20.4 billion. Hendricks is the biggest gainer this year in dollar terms, up $5.9 billion from a year ago, helped by a 10% increase in ABC Supply’s 2023 revenues. In percentage terms, the biggest gainer is Elizabeth Uihlein, whose fortune is up 81% to an estimated $6.7 billion. Uihlein and her husband Richard founded packaging supplies firm Uline in 1980. The jump in her net worth is due to Forbes having more F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Jackson of Jackson Family Wines–known for its KendallJackson and La Crema wines– is worth an estimated $2.6 billion. Semiconductor entrepreneur and investor Susan Ocampo has an estimated $2 billion fortune, with the majority coming from a 21% stake in publicly-traded semiconductor firm Macom Technology Solutions. Shares of server and storage producer Supermicro are up over 400% in the last year, which pushed cofounder Sara Liu’s estimated net worth to $1 billion.

The highest profile newcomer is singer Katy Perry, worth an estimated $350 million

information about revenues at the privately held company (estimated at $8 billion in 2023) as well as a higher valuation of the company tied to stronger market conditions. Eleven new faces joined the ranks. The highest profile newcomer is singer Katy Perry, worth an estimated $350 million, mostly due to the September 2023 sale of her music catalog. Fawn Weaver, owner of the

fastest-growing whiskey brand in American history, Uncle Nearest, makes her debut, as does money manager Joan Payden, who launched her firm Payden & Rygel in 1983 and remains CEO at age 92. There are a record 31 billionaires on the list, up from 24 last year, including three newcomers. Barbara Banke, cofounder with her late husband Jess

The other four who moved up into the 10-figure ranks include Taylor Swift, who became a billionaire in October 2023 thanks to the earnings from her Eras tour and the value of her music catalog; after accounting for additional tour dates and a higher value for her music catalog, Forbes now estimates Swift’s fortune at $1.3 billion–$200 million more than in the fall; Sheila Johnson, who cofounded cable TV network BET Networks in 1979 with her ex-husband Robert Johnson, and who is now a billionaire due in part to the rising value of her investments in the NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals; Lisa Su, the CEO of semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices, whose rose amid the excitement about generative AI; and Michelle Zatlyn, cofounder of cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, another company whose shares surged in the past year. The oldest member of the list, at 97 is Alice Schwartz, who cofounded research and diagnostic firm Bio-Rad JUNE 2024

BY KERRY A. DOLAN AND ANDREA MURPHY; ART STREIBER/DISNEY

LEADERBOARD

1. DIANE HENDRICKS $20.9 billion  SOURCE: Building supplies RESIDENCE: Afton, WI • AGE: 77 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

$11.6 billion  SOURCE: Gas stations RESIDENCE: Oklahoma City, OK • AGE: 86 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

3. JUDY FAULKNER $7.6 billion  SOURCE: Health care software RESIDENCE: Madison, WI • AGE: 80 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

4. THAI LEE $6.8 billion  SOURCE: IT provider RESIDENCE: Austin, TX • AGE: 65 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

5. ELIZABETH UIHLEIN $6.7 billion  SOURCE: Packaging materials RESIDENCE: Lake Forest, IL • AGE: 78 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

Billionaire Diane Hendricks keeps the top spot for the seventh consecutive year with a record $20.9 billion fortune.

Laboratories in 1952. The youngest is Kylie Jenner, 26. California continues to be home to the greatest number of list members. Thirty nine women call the Golden State home, including former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and Alphabet’s president Ruth Porat, up from 38 last year. Eleven live in Texas, including SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell and Advanced Micro Devices’ Lisa Su. Newcomer Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JP Morgan Chase’s wealth management business, is one of nine members who live in New York.

GABRIELA HASBUN FOR FORBES

While nearly three quarters of the list saw their fortunes grow year over year, 10 members saw their fortunes drop. The fortune of Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of female-focused dating app Bumble, is down by $120 million to $400 million, after shares of Bumble fell by more than a third

in the past year. She stepped down as CEO in January but remains chairman. Also down this year is Doris Fisher, cofounder of clothing retailer Gap. She donated most of her art collection, which accounted for a significant portion of her fortune, to the Fisher Art Foundation. Eleven members of last year’s list dropped off, including Anne Wojcicki, cofounder and CEO of 23andMe. Shares of the direct-to-consumer genetics testing company fell 95% from their high in 2021 and the company was at risk of being delisted. In April, Wojcicki said she was considering taking the company private. Showrunner Shonda Rhimes, the woman behind television hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal and the popular streaming series Bridgerton, who was worth $250 million last year, didn’t make the $300 million cutoff for this year’s list.

Methodology: To compile net worths, we valued individual assets including stakes in public companies using stock prices from May 3, 2024. We valued private companies by consulting with outside experts and conservatively comparing them with public companies. To be eligible for the list, women have to have substantially made their own fortunes in the U.S. and/or be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. While none inherited their wealth, some climbed farther and overcame more obstacles to get into the ranks. To measure just how far some have come, women are given a self-made score of 6 (hired hand) to 10 (rags-to-riches entrepreneur). We attempted to vet numbers with all list entrants. Some cooperated, others didn’t. Ages are as of May 28, 2024. For more information, including details on the self-made scores, see forbes.com/self-made-women. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

6. LYNDA RESNICK $5.6 billion  SOURCE: Agriculture RESIDENCE: Beverly Hills, CA • AGE: 81 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

7. MARIAN ILITCH $4.6 billion  SOURCE: Little Caesars Pizza RESIDENCE: Bingham Farms, MI • AGE: 91 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

8. GAIL MILLER $4.4 billion  SOURCE: Car dealerships RESIDENCE: Salt Lake City • AGE: 80 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

9. JOHNELLE HUNT $4.3 billion  SOURCE: Trucking RESIDENCE: Fayetteville, AR • AGE: 92 SELF-MADE SCORE: 

10. EREN OZMEN $3.7 billion  SOURCE: Aerospace RESIDENCE: Reno, NV • AGE: 65 SELF-MADE SCORE:  JUNE 2024

9 LEADERBOARD

2. JUDY LOVE & FAMILY

Billionaires

Billionaire Makers

Manchester United

at Tether and its biggest shareholder, with an estimated 47% stake and a $9.2 billion fortune, according to Forbes. Jean-Louis van der Velde is the former CEO of Tether and the CEO of its sister company, Bitfinex, who owns an estimated 20% of the business and has a net worth of $3.9 billion. As CEO, Paolo Ardoino controls approximately a 20% stake in Tether and has a $3.9 billion fortune. Since 2014, Stuart Hoegner has served as general counsel for Tether and its sister company Bitfinex. His stake in Tether is worth an estimated 13% and his net worth stands at $2.5 billion.

Headquarters: U.K. Sector: Sports

New billionaires: • Avram Glazer • Bryan Glazer • Edward Glazer • Joel Glazer • Kevin Glazer • Darcie Glazer Kassewitz In 2023, the six Glazer siblings sold a quarter of their 68% stake in Manchester United to British chemicals billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, valuing the team at $5.4 billion. Their late father, Malcolm Glazer, a shopping mall magnate, originally bought the team for $1.4 billion in 2005. The Glazer siblings also own the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which their father acquired for $192 million in 1995. According to Forbes, the franchise is worth an estimated $4.2 billion as of August 2023. Avram and Joel Glazer co-chair Manchester United, which is now valued at $6.55 billion as per Forbes, while Joel also co-chairs the Buccaneers with his brothers Bryan and Edward. Kevin Glazer manages the family’s real estate business, Glazer Properties. Their sister, Darcie Glazer, is the president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Foundation and the Glazer Vision Foundation, which provides eyecare to underserved children in the Tampa Bay area. The six siblings are each worth $1.7 billion.

Grupo Coppel Headquarters: Mexico Sector: Diversified New billionaires: • Rubén Coppel Luken • Alberto Coppel Luken • José Coppel Luken • Agustín Coppel Luken • Enrique Coppel Luken F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Kansas City Chiefs Avram and Joel Glazer co-chair Manchester United, which is now valued at $6.55 billion as per Forbes.

Grupo Coppel is a Mexican conglomerate with interests in retail and banking, owned by the five Coppel Luken brothers. This family legacy began with their father and grandfather, who founded the first shop in Sinaloa, selling radios and watches. Rubén Coppel Lukin serves as chairman of BanCoppel and Afore Coppel, the group’s banking and pension fund businesses. In mid-2023, Afore Coppel reported over $24 billion in assets under management. Enrique Coppel Luken was chairman and CEO of the group until 2008, when Agustín Coppel Luken, the youngest sibling, assumed the role. Enrique is the wealthiest of the brothers, with a fortune of $2.4 billion, followed by Rubén at $1.9 billion. Alberto and José are each worth $1.8 billion,

while Agustín is valued at $1.6 billion.

Tether Headquarters: U.S. Sector: Cryptocurrency New billionaires: • Giancarlo Devasini • Jean-Louis van der Velde • Paolo Ardoino • Stuart Hoegner Blockchain-enabled platform Tether launched in 2014 to enable the use of fiat currencies in a digital manner. As of March 2024, Tether has issued over $104 billion in USDt tokens, with over $12.5 billion in USDt minted in Q1 2024 alone, recording a profit of $4.5 billion in the same quarter. Giancarlo Devasini is the chief financial officer

Headquarters: U.S. Sector: Sports New billionaires: • Clark Hunt & family • Daniel Hunt & family • Lamar Hunt• Jr. & family • Sharron Hunt & family The Hunt siblings own the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, a team founded by their late father, Lamar Sr. Hunt, who passed control to his children in 2005. The siblings also own the MLS team FC Dallas and a minority stake in the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. Clark Hunt serves as chairman and CEO of the family’s soccer club, while Daniel Hunt is the president. According to Forbes estimates, the Kansas City Chiefs are valued at $4.3 billion as of August 2023, with each Hunt sibling owning an estimated 25% stake. Each of the four Hunt siblings controls a fortune estimated at $1.4 billion. JUNE 2024

BY JAMILA GANDHI; PHOTO BY OLI SCARFF / AFP

LEADERBOARD

A total of 265 individuals joined Forbes’ World’s Billionaires this year, with some enjoying a significant surge in their wealth status. These four businesses generated the highest number of new billionaires in 2024. All net worths are as of May 27, 2024.

Business

MENA’s 5 Most Profitable Companies Saudi Aramco

1953, which merged with Samba Financial Group in 2021 to create SNB. As of March 2024, it operated 474 branches, 19 retail service centers, and 96 QuickPay remittance centers in Saudi Arabia, as well as four branches in Bahrain, the U.A.E, Qatar, and Singapore. As of December 2023, it had 14.2 million customers. SNB’s net profit hit $5.4 billion in 2023, an increase of 7.4% compared to 2022. This is due to an increase in total operating income, primarily from net special commission income and banking service fees. In February 2024, the bank issued $850 million in a USD-denominated sukuk under its international sukuk program. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund owns a 37.2% stake in the bank.

Profits: $121.3 billion Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Energy Aramco is one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemicals companies. Despite a 24.7% decrease in net profit in 2023—primarily due to lower crude oil prices and volumes sold—the company recorded its second-highestever net income and is still the most profitable company in the region. In January 2024, the company allocated an additional $4 billion to its global venture capital arm, Aramco Ventures, increasing its total investment allocation to $7 billion. In April 2024, Aramco awarded engineering, procurement, and construction contracts worth $7.7 billion for a major expansion of its Fadhili Gas Plant in Saudi Arabia, which is expected to increase its capacity by up to 1.5 billion standard cubic feet per day.

International Holding

Company (IHC)

BY AMR ABDELHAMID; IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Profits: $9 billion Country: U.A.E. Sector: Investments IHC was founded in 1998 to diversify and develop the non-oil business sectors in the U.A.E. As of March 2024, it had more than 900 subsidiaries across diversified sectors, including asset management, healthcare, real estate, construction, financial services, hospitality, technology, food and sustainability. IHC’s net profit grew by 1.2% in 2023 to approximately $9 billion, while its revenues surged by 17.9% to $16.4 billion compared to 2022, as a result of strategic F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

In April 2024, Aramco awarded engineering, procurement, and construction contracts worth $7.7 billion for a major expansion of its Fadhili Gas Plant in Saudi Arabia.

acquisitions, and the strong financial performance of its existing businesses. In January 2024, IHC formed 2PointZero, a next generation holding company with assets expected to exceed $27.2 billion.

Emirates NBD Profits: $5.9 billion Country: U.A.E. Sector: Banks & Financial Services Emirates NBD was formed in 2007 by a merger between Emirates Bank International and the National Bank of Dubai. Today, it has 858 branches, and two representative offices, serving over 9.4 million active customers in 12 countries. In 2023, the bank provided over

$19 billion of new corporate lending and recorded a net profit of $5.9 billion, an increase of 65.4% compared to 2022. In October 2023, the bank launched a digital wealth platform embedded within its mobile app, ENBD X, to allow customers to trade more than 11,000 global and regional equities and ETFs across 21 capital markets. The platform had facilitated over $272.3 million in investments as of December 2023.

Saudi National Bank (SNB) Profits: $5.4 billion Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services SNB was founded as NCB in

ADNOC Gas Profits: $4.7 billion Country: U.A.E. Sector: Energy ADNOC Gas was formed through the merger of ADNOC Gas Processing, ADNOC LNG, and ADNOC Industrial Gas. It became operational in January 2023, and by the end of the year, it recorded a net profit of $4.7 billion. It also signed new LNG supply agreements valued between $9 billion and $12 billion, capitalizing on the growing global demand for LNG as a transitional fuel. In March 2023, it raised $2.5 billion by selling 5% of its total issued share capital on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, becoming the ADX’s largest-ever IPO. ADNOC Gas has access to 95% of the U.A.E.’s natural gas reserves, supplies around 60% of the U.A.E.’s gas needs, and exports natural gas and related products to over 20 countries. JUNE 2024

11 LEADERBOARD

Despite challenging circumstances, many companies have managed to maintain strong performance across various sectors. These were the five most profitable companies in MENA in 2023.

Markets

7 Middle East Businesswomen Who Took Their Firms Public These leaders from our list of the Middle East’s 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2024 have led their companies onto stock markets.

Anwar bint Nawaf Al Thani

Pakinam Kafafi

Company: Al Faleh Educational Holding

Hend El-Sherbeni

As CEO of the company, Al Thani oversaw its move to the main market of the Qatar Stock Exchange in January 2024, becoming the first woman-led Qatari public shareholding company on the stock market. In April 2021, Al Faleh Educational Holding listed its shares on the Qatar Stock Exchange’s venture market, to become the first educational company to be listed on the venture market. The company revealed its plans to establish a new Postgraduate Educational Institution in the U.K. in August 2024.

Shaista Asif Company: PureHealth Holding Asif was appointed Group CEO of PureHealth Holding in December 2023, having served as Group COO since 2010. PureHealth was listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) in the same month, raising a total of $985 million for its IPO. It was oversubscribed 483 times in the retail tranche and by 54 times in the professional subscribers’ tranche. It marked the sixth listing on the ADX in 2023, with its total value surpassing $5.57 billion. The total gross demand for the offering summed up to around $72 billion. PureHealth reported revenues of $1.7 billion in Q1 2024, a 52.1% growth compared to Q1 of the previous year.

Pakinam Kafafi Company: TAQA Arabia The Egyptian Exchange approved the listing of TAQA Arabia’s shares in June 2023, F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Media in February 2024. It also has Media 247 and Viola Communications in its portfolio.

Company: Integrated Diagnostics Holdings (IDH)

with an issued capital of $21.8 million. This was done under Kafafi’s leadership, who has been CEO since April 2013, having served as Chief Investment Officer in 2006. The company recorded $75.6 million in revenues in the three months ended March 2024, a 21.7% increase compared to the same period last year, and net profit worth $2.1 million. The company unveiled Tanzania’s first integrated Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Filling Station and Conversion Center branded “Master Gas” in November 2023.

Sarah Al-Suhaimi Company: Saudi Tadawul Group Al-Suhaimi joined the Saudi Tadawul Group as chairperson in 2017. The group officially went public on the Saudi Exchange in December 2021 by floating 30% of its issued share capital. Institutional investors

oversubscribed by 121 times, at a demand of $122 billion, while the retail tranche was oversubscribed by 4.4 times at $1.3 billion. Its market cap was $3.4 billion at the time of listing. In Q1 2024, the group recorded operating revenues of $103.4 million, marking a growth of 72.8% compared to the same period in 2023.

Samia Bouazza Company: Multiply Group Bouazza founded the Multiply Marketing Consultancy (MMC) in 2003, which became the Multiply Group in 2021. The group was listed on the ADX in December 2021, before which it raised $844 million in a private placement. In Q1 2024, company revenues increased by 45.4% to hit $106.5 million. Its public market portfolio closed the first quarter of the year with a valuation of $7.6 billion. Multiply Group acquired 100% of BackLite

El-Sherbini joined IDH in 2004 before being appointed group CEO in 2012. IDH has had a standard listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange since May 2015, and a secondary listing on the EGX since May 2021 at 600 million shares. At the time of its listing, the company had a market capitalization of $650 million on the EGX. In May 2024, IDH announced its proposal to delist its shares from the EGX in light of continuing low liquidity and trading volumes on the EGX, while maintaining its existing standard listing on the LSE. IDH recorded revenues of $133.2 million in 2023, a 14.4% increase compared to 2022. In October 2023, El-Sherbeni completed a purchase of an additional two million shares in IDH through Hena Holdings, the vehicle through which El-Sherbeni owns her shares. Hena Holdings is the largest shareholder in the company, with a stake of 27.07%.

Jalila Mezni Company: Societe d’Articles Hygieniques (SAH Group) Mezni established the SAH Group in 1994 alongside Mounir El Jaiez, and it was listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange for the first time in January 2014. In Q1 2024, the group recorded revenues of $77 million. Among its subsidiaries are SAH Morocco, SAH Algeria, Azur Papier, and Azur Détergent. JUNE 2024

BY SARA JUNAID; IMAGE FROM SOURCE

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JUNE 2024

Markets

Global Asset Managers Betting on the Middle East In the dynamic world of global finance, the Middle East is ripe with opportunities for leading global asset management and private equity firms, despite a recent setback in regional private equity deals, which declined 26% year-on-year to $11.6 billion in 2023, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. Here’s a look at some of the global giants expanding in this region.

the U.A.E. and the Gulf for over two decades, managing assets totaling $25 billion from over 60 investors and allocating $8 billion in capital to the region. With $164 billion of assets under management or advisory as of 2023, the French firm opened an office in ADGM in January 2023, its first in the Middle East and sixteenth globally. In February 2024, Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners, a joint venture between Mubadala Capital and Alpha Wave Global, announced a strategic investment in Ardian’s Secondaries Fund IX.

Franklin Templeton Global asset management firm Franklin Templeton, which had $1.6 trillion in assets under management (AuM) as of April 2024, officially commenced operations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in March 2024 as part of its expansion strategy in the Middle East, after obtaining licenses from the Capital Market Authority. The California-based company has also had an office in Dubai, U.A.E. since 2000. The firm has operated locally for nearly 25 years, serving sovereign wealth funds, central banks, family offices, and branches of global private banks.

Wellington Management Boston-based Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest global independent investment management firms with over $1.2 trillion in AuM as of December 2023, expanded into the Middle East market in January 2024 with a new office in the Dubai F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

TCI Fund Management Boston-based Wellington Management, with over $1.2 trillion in AuM as of December 2023, expanded into the Middle East market in January 2024 with a new office in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

International Financial Centre (DIFC). Wellington has managed assets for Middle East clients from its London office for 29 years, including those in DIFC and the U.A.E. The new Dubai office will support clients in their local markets and expand its global presence in EMEA.

AllianceBernstein With nearly $737 billion in AuM as of April 2024, U.S.based AllianceBernstein kicked off its operations in the region by launching an office in DIFC after obtaining a Category 4 License from the Dubai Financial Services Authority. This move is part of AllianceBernstein’s strategic plan to expand and solidify its presence in the Middle East.

Fiera Capital Canada-based independent asset management firm Fiera Capital launched its foray into the Middle East in February 2024 by establishing its first office within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) as part of its expansion strategy across the GCC. Founded in 2003 by chairman and global CEO Jean-Guy Desjardins, Fiera Capital has over $121.9 billion in assets under management across various platforms and geographies as of March 2024, with 7% coming from EMEA.

Ardian Private investment powerhouse Ardian has maintained its presence in

TCI Fund Management, a London-based investment firm, launched an office in ADGM in November 2023. Forbes showed that the firm, run by British billionaire Christopher Hohn, achieved investor gains of $12.9 billion last year, surpassing any other hedge fund as its investments in equity markets thrived, according to data published by LCH Investments.

Brevan Howard Macro investment firm Brevan Howard put boots on the ground in the Middle East in February 2024 by launching its office at the Al Sarab Tower in ADGM. Alongside some senior executives relocating to Abu Dhabi, the firm aims to leverage the diverse and skilled talent pool available in the region to support its continuous expansion efforts. JUNE 2024

BY MUHAMMAD ADDAM ; IMAGE FROM SOURCE

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These global asset managers, hedge funds, and private equity firms have been expanding into the Middle East, accessing the region’s vibrant economic ecosystem and making bumper investments.

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Hockey sticks and techtonic shifts—change happens gradually then all at once. Conventional models of leadership, business and entrepreneurship now face storms of transformations: new administrations and elections worldwide, geopolitical and trade tensions, volatile economic conditions, energy transitions, wildly accelerating tech—the list goes on. Amid this tumult, the 22nd Forbes Global CEO Conference will gather insights from top CEOs, thought leaders, entrepreneurs and investors as they create new paradigms to move forward, survive and thrive. For more information, please visit forbesglobalceoconference.com or email info@forbesasia.com.sg

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JUNE 2024

Leadership

Gender Diversity Gains Traction in MENA Workplaces MENA is witnessing a transformation in its approach to gender diversity and inclusion of women in the workplace. While there’s still a way to go, many companies are taking steps to create a more inclusive environment and diverse workforce. The need for more women in leadership roles is gaining momentum in MENA, with companies actively seeking to increase female representation. A recent report by PwC Middle East states that data from the International Labour Organization shows a substantial increase in the level of female participation in the labor force, up from 19% to 32% between 1990 and 2021 across Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon and Jordan. As of January 2024, women held 5.2% of the 5,591 board seats in 752 publicly listed companies across the GCC, including the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, according to a report by Heriot-Watt University and Aurora50. The U.A.E. is home to the most publicly listed companies with the highest percentage of board positions held by women, at 10.8% (133 of 1,231 seats). Oman follows with 5.8% (45 of 783 seats), then Bahrain at 5.5% (20 of 363 seats), Kuwait at 5% (48 of 963 seats), Saudi Arabia at 2% (36 of 1,811 seats), and Qatar at 1.8% (eight of 440 seats). On the sectoral level, utilities had the highest percentage of women serving in board positions at 8%, followed by healthcare at 6.7%, energy at 6.5%, and finance at 5.9%. According to PwC Middle East, progress is being made thanks to the rapid economic and social transformation F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Percentage of Board Positions Held by Women at Publicly Listed Companies in the GCC

Women’s Seats

10.8%

5.8%

5.5%

1.8%

133 seats

45 seats

20 seats

48 seats

36 seats

8 seats

U.A.E.

Oman

Bahrain

Kuwait

Saudi Arabia

Qatar

1,231 seats

783 seats

363 seats

963 seats

1,811 seats

440 seats

Source: Heriot-Watt University & Aurora50. Data as of January 2024.

in the region, particularly in the GCC, where national development plans and policies prioritizing female workforce integration have played a key role. This, combined with a surge in female education and entrepreneurial spirit, has fueled this remarkable advancement. However, PwC Middle East data suggests that many women who take career breaks throughout their lives face challenges when returning to work, such as employer stigma around career breaks and lack of flexible working arrangements. To leverage the talent pool of competent women eager to return to work, companies are urged

to offer enhanced maternity and paternity benefits, alternative work models, return-to-work programs, and inclusive workplace policies and training to resolve unconscious bias. Women returning to work are an economic force to be reckoned with—accounting for around $385 billion of GDP in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Oman. Generally, to further boost female representation, initiatives like flexible work arrangements are recommended. According to PwC Middle East, this alone could generate $4.3 billion of total GDP gains in the nine MENA countries.

Building inclusive leadership teams can also help businesses outperform financially. According to a 2023 report by McKinsey & Company, companies with more gender-diverse boards of directors are 27% more likely to outperform financially compared to those with the least diverse boards. Similarly, companies with the most ethnically diverse boards see a 13% advantage in financial performance. While challenges remain, leaders in MENA are recognizing the importance of diversity and inclusion, with continued efforts from businesses, governments, and individuals needed to create a more inclusive work environment for all. JUNE 2024

BY JULIAN NABIL

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JUNE 2024

CONTRARIAN • STRATEGIES/SUSTAINABILITY

By William Baldwin

C O N T R A R I A N • S T R AT EG I E S / S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Photograph by Guerin Blask for Forbes

Green Gas Giant Linde’s SANJIV LAMBA serves two masters: environmentalists and investors. Neither group has cause to complain.

Linde PLC puts the heavy in heavy industry. It furnishes industrial gases to the world’s smokestacks: fertilizer plants, steel mills, glassworks, oil refineries. It spews 38 million tons a year of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

This is a repentant sinner. Sanjiv Lamba, who has been running the firm from a Danbury, Connecticut, office for the past two years, reels off the many things Linde is doing to save the environment. He says it’s going to get its own operations down to net zero carbon (eventually), and in the meantime, for every pound of greenhouse gas it emits, its products and its know-how enable customers to avoid more than two pounds of their own emissions. He talks about the $2 billion Linde will put into a

Atmospherics Sanjiv Lamba at Linde’s Connecticut office. “Carbon capture has happened for decades”— that’s how his gas engineers supply soda bottlers. Now they’ll send CO2 underground.

JUNE 2024

PATRICK WELSH FOR FORBES

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HOW TO PLAY IT By William Baldwin Linde is an ancient industrial outfit that has done a nice job keeping up with the times. Alas, investors know this: Shares are priced at 28 times likely 2024 earnings. Now look at Deere & Co., another venerable industrial. It’s in a very different line of business but sports a similar emphasis on technology and a profit margin almost as good. John Deere invented a slick plow in 1837; now his company sells exotic forestry equipment and $963,000 computerguided combines. It spends $2.2 billion a year on R&D. Sales will be down this year but will recover. Deere’s price/earnings ratio is half Linde’s. William Baldwin is Forbes’ Investment Strategies columnist.

should command a premium from industrial customers who want to advertise their own good deeds. If all goes well, the Beaumont hydrogen will be as profitable for Linde as the dirty hydrogen it now makes. The numbers don’t look so good for hydrogen made from renewable electricity. That stuff costs $5 to $8 a kilo. A federal credit of $3 isn’t enough to make it economic, at least not now. The killer is the capital outlay. Here’s another sanity check. Electrolyzers take up five times the acreage that would be needed by a hydrogen plant that starts with methane and sequesters the carbon, Lamba says. And if your electrolyzers are powered by solar panels, make that 500 times the acreage. Linde pays due worship to the renewable gods. It is investing in electrolyzers, including hightech ones that use proton exchange membranes to make the process more efficient. When will these things be cost-competitive? Perhaps in five to seven years, Lamba answers. This may be simply a diplomatic way of saying, “Don’t hold your breath.” Important detail in the Elysian fields of fuel made from water: getting the juice. Linde is not above a little puffery here, describing the output of an electrolyzer it has under construction near Niagara Falls as “green hydrogen,” even though the hydroelectricity to fuel it is being diverted from other uses. Given the strains on the U.S. electric grid, a big shift into electrolyzing might just force the construction of yet more power plants fueled by natural gas, defeating the purpose. Lamba injects some realism here: “We’re going to be competing with AI data centers for electricity.” The environmental prosperity promised by the splitting of water molecules always seems to be just around the corner. In 2005, the George W. Bush administration envisioned that, by 2015, renewable energy–fired electrolysis would yield hydrogen at a cost of $2.75 a kilo, delivered. That goal remains elusive. Perhaps there will be a technological breakthrough, or a dramatic reduction in manufacturing costs when electrolyzers are mass-produced. Linde is wisely playing a defensive game. To work on electrolyzers it has engaged a partner to do the cutting-edge research, the British firm ITM Power. ITM is losing money. Here’s a hydrogen idea, one that appeared in a book by scientist J.B.S. Haldane 100 years ago: Use intermittent renewable energy to split water and stockpile the hydrogen for later use. To environmentalists who are good with

JUNE 2024

19 C O N T R A R I A N • S T R AT EG I E S / S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Beaumont, Texas, hydrogen plant that will stick the resulting CO2 in the ground. “Hydrogen energy is our future, and Linde is leading the way,” declares the company’s website. When trucks, buses and ships need hydrogen fuel, Linde will be equipped. It knows how to handle gas under a pressure of 10,000 pounds per square inch. And when is the world turning green? Well, someday. Not too fast. The words “a question of time” come up when Lamba talks. And the words “sanity check.” He’s not going to let a climate diversion cause Linde to miss an earnings estimate. The green energy revolution is having a rough patch. In the past three years the Invesco Wilder Hill Clean Energy fund has lost 72% of its investors’ money. Tesla’s unit sales have fallen. The big windmill makers (Vestas and spinoffs from GE and Siemens) are either barely profitable or losing money. Wall Street is littered with red-ink hydrogen companies. In this environment, Linde is something of a freak. It netted $6.2 billion last year on revenue of $33 billion. Whatever Lamba’s admiration for Greta Thunberg, it is greater still for his opera ting margin (27.6% if you exclude merger-related accounting charges). Lamba, 59, came up through the financial side, starting in his native India. His rapid-fire conversation is thick with numbers, either of profit margins or chemical formulas. Consider the numbers he attaches to the production of hydrogen, for which the International Energy Agency exuberantly envisions, for 2050, a 420fold increase in low-emission sources. There are two good ways to get your hands on this abundant element. One is to send an electric current through water, a method beloved of environmental dreamers if the electricity comes from a solar panel or wind turbine. The other method is to cook methane, usually in the presence of steam. That’s the technique that Linde uses for most of its hydrogen production, releasing, in this chemical reaction, ten pounds of carbon dioxide for every pound of hydrogen. Hydrogen can be made from methane at a cost not much higher than $1 a kilogram. Double that if the waste carbon dioxide is to be stuffed underground, which is what Linde aims to do in Beaumont, beginning at the end of next year. The carbon sequestration will entitle Linde to a federal subsidy worth roughly 80 cents per kilo, bringing the net cost of producing hydrogen the nice way to $1.10 or so. That’s a bit more than the cost of dirty hydrogen, but the good hydrogen

Listicle

Green Gas Giant Cont.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

’70S BABIES The Industrial Revolution was in full swing by 1879, when Carl von Linde, a professor in Munich researching refrigeration techniques, founded his precursor to Linde plc as Gesellschaft für Linde’s Eismaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (“Linde’s Ice Machine Company”). Here are a handful of big businesses around the globe that also got their start in the 1870s. Brown-Forman (Market cap: $23 bil) Founded: 1870 • Louisville, Kentucky Industry: Spirits and wine Famous products: Jack Daniel’s, Woodford Reserve, Old Forester Weir Group ($6.8 bil) 1871 • Liverpool, England Industrial equipment Mining and infrastructure machinery Eli Lilly ($737 bil) 1876 • Indianapolis Pharmaceuticals Trulicity, Cialis, Cymbalta Henkel ($36 bil) 1876 • Aachen, Germany Adhesives, consumer goods Dial, Purex, Loctite

Man of La Mustache Edward Willis Scripps founded the U.S.’ first major newspaper chain.

The E.W. Scripps Company ($360 mil) 1878 • Cleveland Broadcasting, local news Scripps Networks, Court TV

be asphyxiating, flammable, explosive or useful only at 99.999% purity. Linde’s archrival is Air Products & Chemicals, an Allentown, Pennsylvania–based company that is in the same line of work and espouses the same kinds of environmental aspirations, only more emphatically. A press release boasts of Air Products’ $8.4 billion joint venture to produce green hydrogen. Wall Street has its favorite of the two. Linde’s enterprise value—market capitalization plus debt minus cash—is 6.7 times revenue, compared to 5.5 for Air Products. Since the 2018 consolidation, Linde’s stock has climbed 157% to Air Products’ 60%. (Air Products did not respond to requests for an interview.) Going green will pay off someday, but it’s important not to get ahead of the timetable. Lamba’s timeline includes this goal: a gradual increase in that operating margin, at the rate of 0.3% to 0.5% every year. It’s a stretch, but no greater than the idea that the planet will be at net zero in 2050. FI N AL TH OU GH T

“REDEMPTION IS A FUNNY THING. EVEN IF WE DON’T ASK FOR IT, SOMETIMES WE SEEK IT OUT.” —Obie Williams

JUNE 2024

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

C O N T R A R I A N • S T R AT EG I E S / S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

abstractions but weak with numbers, this looks clever. It doesn’t survive Lamba’s green eyeshades. What if your electrolyzer is working only a third of the time? Then the cost of amortizing the capital investment triples. The uneconomic green hydrogen becomes even more uneconomic. Stockpile precious clean fuel? Linde has been doing that for a long time, but the effort has nothing to do with decarbonizing. It stores hydrogen in a Moss Bluff, Texas, cavern attached to a 340-mile network of pipes connected to customers on the Gulf Coast. Objective: Make gas feeds 100% dependable. A tiny blip in a gas going to a plant making steel, semiconductors or gasoline forces a costly shutdown. Talk sustainability. Sell reliability. Linde’s inception dates to a late 19th-century thermodynamic device. German engineer Carl von Linde figured out how to chill air to a liquid state by first compressing it, then letting it expand rapidly. The liquefaction is followed by a distillation in which oxygen and nitrogen, which have different boiling points, can be separated. Linde’s first big gas market was for oxygen to be used with acetylene welding, a technology that revolutionized the building of ships and skyscrapers. Soon after, two German engineers found a use for the nitrogen: Combine it with hydrogen to make ammonia and thus nitrate fertilizer. Be thankful for these three inventors. Half the nitrogen in your body came there by way of a chemical plant. The Von Linde family had stakes in air separation businesses in the U.K. and the U.S. that in time went away, in the case of the U.S. assets during World War I. (Nitrates make explosives.) The three pieces of Linde completed their reunification in a 2018 merger. Oxygen and nitrogen are still mainstays of the Linde product lineup, but the firm has managed to rise above the poor economics of industrial commodity production. It invented the technology to make stainless steel cost-effectively with the inert gas argon, which makes up 1% of the air going into its 250-foot-tall air separators. Its liquefiedgas skills enable the flash freezing of 2 billion pizzas a year. It sells the exotic gas mixtures needed to run chip foundries. It occasionally overreaches; the home-oxygen division paid $29 million last year to settle a charge of chiseling Medicare. “We are a technology company at heart,” Lamba says. “There’s $3.70 of my gas and chemicals in the iPhone.” Linde employs 435 people with Ph.D.s. It has a $3.6 billion backlog of custom engineering contracts. Price cutters can’t dive into this industry without being able to handle a product that might

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www.sc.com/en/wealth-retailbanking/private-banking/ JUNE 2024

CONTRARIAN • MONEY & INVESTING

By Bob Ivry

CONTRARIAN • MONEY & INVESTING

Photograph by Cameron Davidson for Forbes

Wannabe Warren THOMAS GAYNER parlayed a stockbroker career into the top job at Virginia’s $16 billion Markel Group, a specialty insurer with a penchant for investing in stocks and

privately owned businesses. Meet Richmond’s answer to the Oracle of Omaha.

Thomas Gayner gets a kick out of telling the story. It was 1983. He had just graduated from the University of Virginia with a plan to return home to Salem, New Jersey, to run an accounting business with his father, Jack. But Jack died suddenly, and instead of heading north, Tom wound up at Davenport & Co., a Richmond stock F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Idiot Savant Chief executive Thomas Gayner has quietly turned insurer Markel into a miniconglomerate with 19 companies and an enviable record.

brokerage. He hadn’t been there long when he read an article about an investor from Omaha who was such an inspiration that Gayner wanted to share his excitement with his boss. “Hey, Joe,” Gayner said, “have you heard of this guy, Warren Buf-fay?” “It’s Buffett, you idiot,” Joe replied, and tossed Gayner out of his office. Forty years later, Gayner, 62, has built an impressive career by worshiping at the altar of Buffett. Though he still refers to himself as an idiot for not buying Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1984 when it was selling at $1,275 (it currently trades for $612,500), his study of Buffett led him, in 1986, to invest JUNE 2024

JEFFERSON HOTEL BY STEVE HELBER/AP

Wannabe Warren Cont.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Insider Info

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY A jewel of the South founded in 1737, Richmond, Virginia (metro population 1.3 million), is a bustling midsize city with dining, shopping and museums highlighting its role in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Here are a few of longtime resident Tom Gayner’s must-see spots in the capital of the Old Dominion.

Angela’s Ristorante Dine on shrimp parmigiana or stuffed veal chops at this Italian joint. “My wife and I have been going for more than 40 years,” Gayner says. “[Owners] Michael and Denise make you feel like you’re part of the family.”

The Jefferson Hotel Sleep like a king at this five-star whose guests have included John D. Rockefeller and James Brown. Thirteen U.S. presidents have stayed there since it opened in 1895. “It’s Richmond’s landmark hotel.” Carytown Stroll this colorful nine-block stretch of bookshops, boutiques and bakeries, or catch a flick at the Byrd, an ornate “movie palace” opened in 1928. “It’s the best set of locally owned stores and restaurants in town.”

Cash flow, including $30 billion in so-called float, from Markel’s engines enables Gayner to work with what he calls permanent capital. “I’m playing a different game than most people in investments,” he says. “The ability to invest with a long-term time horizon and not worry about daily liquidity concerns is an advantage.” AMF fulfilled Markel’s four criteria for acquisition: a management team with both talent and integrity; reinvestment options; return on capital that doesn’t rely on debt; and a fair price. “Don’t take advantage of anyone, even if you can,” Gayner says. “It’s good karma—and a good way to get future referrals.” Since 2005 Markel Ventures has spent $3.7 billion on acquisitions. Last year its revenue climbed 5% to $5 billion and cash flow (Ebidta) was $628 million, up 24%. It owns stakes in 19 businesses including Brahmin, a Boston–based designer of upscale handbags, North Carolina’s Buckner Heavy Lift Cranes and Costa Farms, a producer of ornamental plants. Gayner’s most recent acquisition, in December 2021, was $274 million for 51% of Metromont, a manufacturer of precast concrete used to make parking garages and other buildings. Boring, solid businesses all. Warren would approve. (Berkshire, in fact, was recently an owner of Markel’s stock.) Gayner complains that investors undervalue Markel because it’s unconventional. These days its weakest engine is insurance underwriting. Morningstar analyst Brett Horn says Markel hasn’t been charging enough but applauds Gayner’s stock picking, which has outperformed the S&P 500 over the past ten years. Besides its Berkshire stock, Markel’s big holdings include Alphabet, Amazon and Deere & Co. Markel has grown its book value per share by an average of 11% annually for 20 years. Like Omaha’s Oracle, Gayner favors buybacks. In the past two years, Markel has spent $700 million repurchasing shares and authorized up to $750 million for 2024. “At the current rate of repurchasing, in 15 years we will have bought back half the shares outstanding, and in 30 years, all of them,” quips Gayner, whose personal stake in Markel amounts to $89 million. “And in 30 years, I’ll still be younger than Buffett is right now.” FI N AL TH OU GH T

“ALL DAY YOU WAIT FOR THE PITCH YOU LIKE. THEN, WHEN THE FIELDERS ARE ASLEEP, YOU STEP UP AND HIT IT.” —Warren Buffett JUNE 2024

23 CONTRARIAN • MONEY & INVESTING

in a little-known family-owned property and casualty insurer called Markel. Gayner thought Markel could do for Richmond what Berkshire did for Omaha. Davenport helped underwrite Markel Group’s $30 million 1986 IPO, and Gayner became pals with Steve Markel, the grandson of the company’s founder. Steve, now chairman, embraced the unorthodox idea of using underwriting profits to invest in equity, via both publicly traded stocks and ownership stakes in private companies. Even today, most insurers are risk-averse and stick to the predictability of bonds. In 1990, Gayner left Davenport to lead equity investing at Markel. His first purchase was Berkshire Hathaway stock, then $5,750 a share. Over the next 34 years, Gayner bought a lot more. Shares of Buffett’s company now account for more than $1 billion of the total $7 billion unrealized gain in Markel Group’s stock portfolio. Markel, which has $57 billion in assets and had revenue of $15.8 billion in 2023, has a market cap of $21 billion today, up from $60 million when Gayner joined full-time. Not until 2005, though, when a deal to buy a Richmond-based bakery equipment supply company, AMF Systems, all but fell into Gayner’s lap, did Markel take off. By then, Gayner had been at Markel for 15 years, “with the Berkshire model always in the back of my mind,” when church friend and AMF CEO Ken Newsome approached him because its private equity owners wanted to sell. “Private equity has no regard for the soul of a business,” Newsome says. Gayner studied AMF’s books and determined it was “a good company with a bad balance sheet.” Markel, in its first acquisition, bought 80% of AMF for roughly $14 million, paid down its debt and promised to keep the company “forever.” Newsome says AMF’s revenue has since increased eightfold. Today, Markel Group has “three engines,” Gayner says: insurance underwriting, stock investing and purchasing controlling interests in private companies, which it does through what it calls Markel Ventures. À la Warren, Markel even publishes and posts a folksy shareholder’s letter annually. After the company logged strong results in 2021, the letter featured the lyrics to Paul Simon’s “Something So Right.” Berkshire Hathaway’s compounded annual growth rate over 58 years is 19.8%. After 38 years as a public company, Markel’s annual return is 15%. “The problem with you guys is you’re trying too hard to be Berkshire,” Gayner says a stock analyst once told him. “Who would you rather us be like?” he replied.

• COVER STORY •

YA S S E R Z A G H LO U L

NEW SHORES Yasser Zaghloul, Group CEO of the NMDC Group, has spearheaded considerable growth for the company since taking the helm in 2009. While the group builds new islands, he’s building a global plan.

BY LAYAN ABO SHKIER F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

Yasser Zaghloul, Group CEO of the NMDC Group.

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

YA S S E R Z A G H LO U L

The U.A.E.’s capital of Abu Dhabi is a feat of natural beauty. The archipelago is made up of over 200 islands and is known for its white sandy beaches and luscious mangrove forests, but behind many of the coastal city’s atolls are companies reclaiming land and creating the infrastructure to bring the emirate to life. One such enterprise is NMDC Group, the largest turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor in the Middle East. “NMDC has been instrumental in various landmark projects that have shaped not only the local landscape but also our global reputation,” says Group CEO, Yasser Zaghloul. Some of the group’s key projects include the involvement of its subsidiary NMDC Dredging & Marine in the Suez Canal Duplication Project, creating a new 34-kilometer canal parallel to the existing channel. The group was also involved in the development of critical artificial islands on Abu Dhabi’s Zakum offshore field, and urban planning achievements like the Abu Dhabi Corniche Beach Development Project, including the construction of a 3.5 km long beachfront. Through NMDC Dredging & Marine, the group works on construction and maintenance dredging for ports and harbors, artificial island construction, beach construction, land reclamation, and intake and outfall dredging. By dredging, the company removes and transports sand from the ocean floor for construction purposes, such as raising the land level to build new islands. The NMDC Group operates across MENA and South Asia and owns a marine fleet of more than 120 vessels. It has been operating since 1976 and over the years has been involved in some of Abu Dhabi’s most vital projects, such as Sir Baniyas Island, Al Maryah Island, Yas Island Beach, and the Khalifa Port marine works. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

The company was listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in 2000 and had a market cap of $5.82 billion as of May 2024. Last year, it witnessed a 56% surge in revenues to $4.5 billion compared to $2.9 billion in 2022, and a 65% increase in net profits at $586.6 million compared to $355 million in 2022. It topped that with its Q1 2024 performance, recording a 67% year-on-year surge in revenue at $1.5 billion and a 111% increase in net profit at $174.6 million. The value of contracts awarded to NMDC Group between January and May 2024 hit $900 million. With data from EMR forecasting that the global EPC market could grow from $8.5 trillion in 2023 to $11.22 trillion by 2032, the NMDC Group seems to be on track to grab new opportunities. Zaghloul credits 2023’s growth as being primarily driven by strategic projects and expansion into new markets and technologies. In June 2023, NMDC Energy was awarded a new $162.3 million contract by ADNOC. A month later, NMDC Energy and its consortium with

“Abu Dhabi is uniquely positioned as a leader in the energy and marine dredging sector, bolstered by advanced infrastructure, strategic location, and investment in leading-edge technology.” C.A.T International Ltd’s Abu Dhabi branch were also awarded a $615 million contract with ADNOC Gas Processing for a project to enhance the Estidama Sales Gas Pipeline Network. In November 2023, NMDC Energy was awarded three contracts worth a total of $1.82 billion by Saudi Aramco. “These strategic expansions not only bolster our position in the industry but also enable us to provide more comprehensive services and support to our clients in these dynamic markets,” says Zaghloul. The group CEO is making his mark, having been with the company for 26 years. Zaghloul previously worked with the Suez Canal Authority before joining NMDC in 1998, where he held several managerial positions before becoming head of operations in 2006. In 2009, Zaghoul became the CEO of the National Marine Dredging Company, as it was known at the time, and since then he says the group has been growing steadily. JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

27 YA S S E R Z A G H LO U L

“NMDC’s business results increased more than 15-fold all types of construction. In 2012, the group added from 2009 to the present,” he stresses. NMDC Engineering, which spearheads coastal and However, he still recalls some of the challenges marine engineering consultancy in the U.A.E. NMDC along the way. “For Al Maryah Island, transforming it Dredging & Marine merged with NMDC Energy in into Abu Dhabi’s business and lifestyle hub required 2021 to create the NMDC Group. “The merger was meticulous environmental planning and sustainable strategically vital. It basically created a powerhouse construction methods,” he explains. “We prioritized of efficiency, and it enhanced our market position by eco-friendly dredging techniques to protect marine diversifying our services globally and expanding our life and integrated new infrastructure seamlessly technical capabilities,” says the group CEO. NMDC with the city’s existing utilities.” Today, the island is Energy’s CEO, Ahmed Salem Aldhaheri, agrees. “The considered the capital’s business hub, with Abu Dhabi merger between NMDC and NPCC is a pivotal move Global Market Square being Al Maryah Island’s for NMDC Energy, enhancing our global standing commercial center, along with various blue-chip and operational capabilities. It allows us to deliver companies and local, regional, and international integrated solutions across the energy value chain, institutions. “On Yas Island Beach, the challenge was advancing our leadership in sustainable energy balancing extensive tourist facilities with natural practices and driving long-term growth,” he adds. beauty. We implemented advanced coastal protection measures and designed facilities that harmonize with the environment, ensuring stability and aesthetic appeal,” he adds. However, early in his tenure as group CEO, he was hit with a challenging request: to make the NMDC Group a global player. “I had a conversation with our chairman who asked if it was possible for NMDC to become the world leader in our industry. That question wasn’t just a light bulb The NMDC Group operates across MENA and South Asia and owns a marine moment; it was like someone fleet of more than 120 vessels. turned on the stadium lights at a night game,” he remembers. In October 2023, the group announced its new Zaghloul figured that he had to fortify the group’s brand identity, unifying its four subsidiaries under infrastructure and solidify its dominance in the local one visual essence. “Diversification is central to our market while laying the foundations to branch out strategy. It’s about ‘growing young’ by embracing internationally. Diversification was key to ensuring innovation and exploring new markets and that it had solid ground locally. The company that is industries,” says Zaghloul. today known as NMDC Dredging & Marine started Globally, projects have started to come NDMC’s as a subsidiary of ADNOC in 1976 as the National way. In April 2022, Taiwan’s Yunneng Wind Power Marine Dredging Company. It is now one of four Co. Ltd awarded NMDC Energy a project worth companies under one umbrella operating in four $98.8 million for the installation of monopiles for industries: engineering, procurement, construction, wind turbine structures in the Yunlin offshore wind and marine dredging. farm. In the same year, Petronas, a Malaysia-based NMDC Dredging & Marine ventured into its first company, awarded NMDC Energy parallel front-end acquisition in 2010, a year after Zaghloul took the engineering and design contracts for its Kasawari helm, where it added Emarat Europe (now known phase two offshore project, which is considered the as NMDC Construction) to its portfolio, which largest offshore carbon capture and storage project in creates and installs sustainable precast solutions for the world.

YA S S E R Z A G H LO U L

While the company grows, challenges persist. In The NMDC group uses AI to predict maintenance, 2023, supply chain disruptions saw the company optimize equipment performance, and reduce significantly reinvent its logistics and procurement downtime. Advanced algorithms analyze vast strategies. The NMDC Group launched its “Let’s amounts of data to predict potential issues before Grow Together” initiative with the Abu Dhabi they occur. “In dredging, digitalization involves Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to support using GPS and sonar technologies to create precise local businesses. “Today, 83% of our suppliers are underwater maps, ensuring accuracy in our local and we use digital technologies to enhance the dredging operations. Real-time data from these visibility and flexibility of our supply chains,” explains technologies is fed into AI systems that optimize Zaghoul. The company also opened overseas offices in dredging routes and operations, improving China as part of its expansion strategy. efficiency and minimizing environmental impact,” Competition poses another challenge for the explains Zaghloul. group. “Today, we face the complex challenge of Looking ahead, Zaghloul plans to break into new sustaining growth amid a highly dynamic and markets in Asia and Africa while continuing to take uncertain competitive market. With international on projects that leverage the group’s technological players competing even at the local level, we regard capabilities. The group CEO sees opportunities in the U.A.E. as a global market. And we’re dancing a countries in Asia investing heavily in infrastructure tightrope of risk management, spurred by a hefty development and coastal protection, while in Africa, backlog that’s both a risk and an opportunity,” the group intends to contribute to the continent’s says Zaghloul. As the evolving industry adapts growth through projects that enhance connectivity to environmental sustainability concerns and and resilience against climate change. However, geopolitical shifts, NMDC is adapting the latest its home market is still a global force when Stay technologies to stay ahead of the game. “The it comes to new opportunities. “Abu Dhabi is connected integration of AI and digitalization is crucial uniquely positioned as a leader in the energy with our latest business news. for enhancing our governance and operational and marine dredging sector, bolstered by control,” he adds. Other experts agree. “AI is advanced infrastructure, strategic location, no longer just an advantage; it’s a necessity in and investment in leading-edge technology,” the EPC industry,” says Melvin Pereira, General he stresses. “Abu Dhabi’s not just on the map; Manager at ALEC Technologies. it’s the navigator.”

Top 5 Industrial Listed Companies in the Middle East 2024 Rank

Company Name

Country

Market value

Revenue

Profits

Assets

Saudi Arabia

$51 billion

$7.8 billion

$453 million

$29.8 billion

Qatar

$19.9 billion

$3.2 billion

$1.3 billion

$11.8 billion

Saudi Arabia

$13.8 billion

$2.9 billion

$1 billion

$6.7 billion

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden)

Industries Qatar

SABIC Agri-Nutrients Company

NMDC Group

U.A.E.

$5.9 billion

$4.5 billion

$587 million

$5.7 billion

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba)

Bahrain

$4.8 billion

$4.1 billion

$314 million

$6.8 billion

*Companies are ranked based on their reported sales, assets, and profits for 2023 and market value as of April 26, 2024.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

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TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

THE MIDDLE EAST’S

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES 2024

conomic uncertainty has cast a shadow over MENA companies in recent years, with the top 100 listed companies seeing a marginal 5.1% decrease in their sales from $1.1 trillion in 2022 to $1 trillion in 2023. Their net profits also dropped by 13.5% to $240.2 billion, and their aggregate market value decreased marginally by 4.4% to $3.6 trillion as of April 2024. However, it’s not all bad news. The value of their total assets grew by 5.4% to $4.9 trillion in 2023, compared to a year earlier. GCC companies dominate the list with 92 entries, led by the U.A.E. with 32 companies, followed by 31 from Saudi Arabia. The list also features 14 companies from Qatar, 10 from Kuwait, four from Morocco, three from Bahrain, and two entries each from Egypt, Jordan, and Oman. Saudi Aramco retains the top spot this year with $660.8 billion in assets and $1.9 trillion in market value, followed by the Saudi National Bank and the International Holding Company. The banking and financial services sector is the most represented with 45 entries generating aggregate sales of $223.5 billion, with $3.3 trillion in assets. However, the energy sector, represented by five companies, is the most profitable, with a combined profit of $127.5 billion, thanks to Aramco. The 2024 list welcomed six new companies including the U.A.E.’s ADNOC Gas, Borouge, PureHealth Holding, and ADNOC Logistics & Services, and Saudi’s Elm and ADES Holding. While notable dropouts include SABIC—ranked second last year—after being hit by a $102.5 million loss in 2023 compared to a $6.3 billion profit in 2022. Year

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

2024

$3.6 trillion

$1 trillion

$240.2 billion

$4.9 trillion

2023

$3.8 trillion

$1.1 trillion

$277.7 billion

$4.6 trillion

2022

$4 trillion

$794 billion

$201.7 billion

$4.2 trillion

To nominate yourself or someone else for our lists, email: info@forbesmiddleeast.com

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

THE MIDDLE EAST’S

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES 1

Saudi Aramco

• President and CEO: Amin H. Nasser Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Energy Market value: $1.9 trillion Sales: $495 billion Profits: $121.3 billion Assets: $660.8 billion Saudi Aramco is one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemicals companies. In June 2023, Aramco and TotalEnergies were awarded engineering, procurement, and construction contracts for the $11 billion Amiral complex. A month later, it purchased a 10% stake in Rongsheng Petrochemical for $3.4 billion. In January 2024, Aramco and Rongsheng Petrochemical announced their plans to buy stakes in each other’s units. In the same month, Aramco allocated an additional $4 billion to its global venture capital arm, Aramco Ventures, increasing its total investment allocation to $7 billion.

Saudi National Bank (SNB) 2

• CEO: Tareq Al Sadhan

Amin H. Nasser 2023, it employed 16,084 people and had 14.2 million customers. In February 2024, the bank issued $850 million in a USDdenominated sukuk under its international sukuk program. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund owns a 37.2% stake in the bank.

International Holding Company (IHC) 3

• CEO and Managing Director: Syed Basar Shueb Sector: Investments

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $238.6 billion

Market value: $59.1 billion

Sales: $16.4 billion Profits: $9 billion

Sales: $15.7 billion Profits: $5.4 billion

Assets: $72 billion

U.A.E. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

QNB Group

• Group CEO: Abdulla Mubarak Al-Khalifa Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Country: Saudi Arabia

SNB was founded as NCB in 1953, which merged with Samba Financial Group in 2021 to create SNB. As of March 2024, it operated 474 branches, 19 retail service centers, and 96 QuickPay remittance centers in Saudi Arabia, as well as four overseas branches in Bahrain, the U.A.E, Qatar, and Singapore. As of December

Country: Qatar

Country: U.A.E.

Assets: $276.6 billion

holding company with assets expected to exceed $27.2 billion.In February 2024, IHC’s Q Holding rebranded as Modon Holding, combining Modon Properties, ADNEC, and Miza Investments after the $12 billion merger of ADQ and IHC Capital Holding’s real estate assets.

Market value: $35.1 billion

IHC was founded in 1998 to diversify and develop the non-oil business sectors in the U.A.E. As of March 2024, it had more than 900 subsidiaries across diversified sectors, including asset management, healthcare, real estate, construction, financial services, hospitality, technology, food, and sustainability. In January 2024, IHC formed 2PointZero, a next generation

Sales: $29.6 billion Profits: $4.3 billion Assets: $338.2 billion With a presence in more than 28 countries across Asia, Africa, and Europe, the QNB Group served more than 30 million customers through a network of 966 branches, as of March 2024. In October 2023, the group launched the QNB Payment Gateway in Qatar to provide local merchants with digital payment solutions The Qatar Investment Authority owns 51.84% of the bank.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$783.8 billion

$213 billion

$61.7 billion

$1.5 trillion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

million in investments as of December 2023. In 2023, it issued $750 million in green bonds and recorded net profits of $5.9 billion, an increase of 65.4% compared to 2022.

alrajhi bank

• Managing Director and CEO: Waleed Abdullah Al-Mogbel Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $82.7 billion Sales: $13.4 billion Profits: $4.4 billion Assets: $215.5 billion Established in 1957, alrajhi bank had over 16.5 million customers across 534 branches and employed over 21,000 people as of March 2024. In March 2023, PIF’s Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company signed a deal with alrajhi bank to refinance more than $1.3 billion in a real estate financing portfolio. In April 2023, the bank issued its first USD sukuk, a $1 billion five-year sustainable sukuk. In March 2024, alrajhi bank joined the Buna platform to enhance its payment solutions.

Jasim Husain Thabet

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

• Group CEO and Managing Director:

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB)

• Group CEO: Shayne Nelson

• Group CEO: Hana Al Rostamani

Country: U.A.E.

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $28.8 billion

Market value: $37.5 billion

Sales: $20.2 billion Profits: $5.9 billion

Sales: $20 billion Profits: $4.5 billion

Assets: $234.9 billion

Assets: $318.2 billion

Emirates NBD was formed in 2007 by a merger between Emirates Bank International and the National Bank of Dubai. Today, it has 858 branches, two representative offices, and 17 subsidiaries, serving over 9.4 million active customers in 12 countries. In October 2023, the bank launched a digital wealth platform embedded within its mobile app, ENBD X, to allow customers to trade more than 11,000 global and regional equities and ETFs across 21 capital markets. The platform had facilitated over $272.3

The U.A.E.’s largest bank in terms of market cap and assets, FAB had a presence in 20 markets and a customer base of more than three million in the U.A.E. in 2023. FAB recorded $4.5 billion in net profit in 2023, a 23% increase from 2022. It also issued a $1 billion USD-denominated Tier 2 bond in October 2023. FAB has committed to providing over $135 billion in green finance by 2030, an 80% increase compared to its 2021 commitment of $75 billion.

Saudi Arabia F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

TAQA Group

Emirates NBD

Jasim Husain Thabet Country: U.A.E. Sector: Utilities Market value: $85.7 billion Sales: $14.1 billion Profits: $4.6 billion Assets: $52.8 billion TAQA is one of the largest listed integrated utility companies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The group’s U.A.E. portfolio consists of 11 operational power generation and water desalination assets that supply more than 71% of Abu Dhabi’s power and 95% of its water. In June 2023, TAQA signed an agreement to acquire the Sustainable Water Solutions Holding Company (SWS Holding) for $462.9 million. In September 2023, TAQA and ADNOC completed the financial closing of their $2.2 billion strategic project to provide sustainable water supply for ADNOC’s onshore operations.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$2.6 trillion

$653.1 billion

$153.4 billion

$2 trillion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

33 TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

completed its merger with Ahli United Bank – Kuwait in February 2024. KFH launched a Shariah-compliant digital bank in Kuwait, Tam Digital Bank, in October 2023. The bank’s net profits increased by 55.3% to hit $2.2 billion in 2023. The Kuwait Investment Authority owned 15.67% of the bank as of mid-March 2024.

34 TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

stc Group

• Group CEO: Olayan Mohammed Alwetaid Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Telecommunications Market value: $51.1 billion Sales: $19.3 billion Profits: $3.6 billion Assets: $42.6 billion

Olayan Mohammed Alwetaid

The stc Group is one of the largest telecom operators in Saudi Arabia. As of March 2024, it had a customer base of 26.92 million mobile subscribers and 5.64 million fixed subscribers. In 2023, TAWAL, one of stc’s subsidiaries, completed the acquisition of United Group’s telecom tower assets in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia, bringing its total tower portfolio now to over 21,000 towers across five countries. The group also acquired a 9.9% stake in Telefónica for $2.3 billion. In April 2024, Saudi’s Public Investment Fund signed a definitive agreement with the stc Group to acquire a 51% stake in TAWAL with an enterprise value of $5.85 billion.

Saudi Electricity Company (SEC)

sukuk, which was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

• CEO: Khaled AlGnoon

Kuwait Finance House • CEO: Ahmed Mohammed Alebri Country: U.A.E. Sector: Energy (KFH)

Sector: Utilities

• Acting Group CEO: Abdulwahab Iesa

Market value: $21.5 billion Sales: $20.1 billion Profits: $2.7 billion Assets: $133.5 billion SEC is one of the region’s biggest utility companies, the main producer of electricity, and the sole owner of transmission and distribution networks throughout Saudi Arabia, serving around 11 million customers, with 314,784 GWh of total electricity sold in 2023. SEC signed a $3 billion international syndicated facility agreement with four banks in the region in 2023. In February 2024, the company issued a $2.2 billion dual-tranche international

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Market value: $62.1 billion

Alrushood

Sales: $17.9 billion Profits: $4.7 billion

Country: Kuwait

Assets: $29 billion

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

ADNOC Gas was formed through the merger of ADNOC Gas Processing, ADNOC LNG, and ADNOC Industrial Gas. It became operational in January 2023. It has access to 95% of the U.A.E.’s natural gas reserves, supplies around 60% of the U.A.E.’s gas needs, and exports natural gas and related products to over 20 countries. In March 2023, it raised $2.5 billion by selling 5% of its total issued share capital on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, becoming the ADX’s largest-ever IPO.

Market value: $39 billion Sales: $8.7 billion Profits: $2.2 billion Assets: $123.5 billion KFH was established as the first Islamic bank in Kuwait in 1977. Today, it operates in 12 countries, with more than 680 branches. In 2022, KFH acquired Ahli United Bank – Bahrain, which converted into a licensed Islamic Bank in December 2023. It

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$116.5 billion

$65.5 billion

$11.4 billion

$628.1 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Country: Saudi Arabia

Qatar

ADNOC Gas

the approval of the Saudi Council of Ministers for a license to operate in the kingdom.

Alpha Dhabi Holding (ADH) 15

• Managing Director and Group CEO:

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Investments Market value: $38.6 billion Sales: $12.4 billion Profits: $3.6 billion Assets: $38.2 billion A subsidiary of IHC, ADH has more than 250 businesses across healthcare, renewable energy, petrochemical, real estate, construction, and hospitality. It employs over 95,000 people. In January 2024, ADNOC Drilling and ADH incorporated a strategic investment joint venture at the Abu Dhabi Global Market, which will pursue global investments in energy technology and bolster tech-enabled energy services. Alpha Dhabi has made its first investment, a 25% equity stake in U.S.-based Gordon Technologies worth approximately $180 million.

Isam Jasem Al-Sager

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

ADCB Group

National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) 16

• Vice Chairman and Group CEO:

• Group CEO: Hatem Dowidar

• Group CEO: Ala’a Eraiqat

Country: U.A.E.

Country: Kuwait

Sector: Telecommunications

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $40.2 billion

Market value: $16.6 billion

Market value: $23.3 billion

Sales: $14.6 billion Profits: $3 billion

Sales: $8.9 billion Profits: $2.2 billion

Sales: $7.5 billion Profits: $1.9 billion

Assets: $40 billion

Assets: $154.4 billion

Assets: $122.4 billion

The Emirates Telecommunications Group was established as Emirates’ telephone company and rebranded to e& in 2022 as it transformed into a technology and investment group. It serves over 173 million subscribers across 32 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. In July 2023, e& enterprise completed the acquisition of 63.3% of Beehive for $23.6 million. In December 2023, the group acquired 50.03% of the Careem Everything App for $400 million.

The ADCB group was formed in 2020 through the merger of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and the Union National Bank and the acquisition of the Al Hilal Bank. Today, it serves over two million customers through over 109 branches across the U.A.E., Egypt, and Kazakhstan. In December 2023, it sold an 80% stake in Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties to Nine Yards Plus Holding at a valuation of $161 million. In January 2024, the group obtained

Established in 1952, NBK has 144 branches across 13 countries. The bank recorded $2.5 billion in sustainable assets in 2023, which it has pledged to raise to $10 billion by 2030. In December 2023, NBK, as part of a consortium of four banks, inked a $1.16 billion financing deal with Shomoul Holding Company to fund Phase 1 of the Avenues Khobar project. NBK also owns 59.9% of Boubyan Bank.

Kuwait F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Isam Jasem Al-Sager

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$91.7 billion

$37.9 billion

$6.8 billion

$423.1 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Hamad Al Ameri

Riyad Bank

• President and CEO: Nadir Al-Koraya Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $22.2 billion

Sales: $6.8 billion Profits: $2.1 billion Riyad Bank operates 335 branches in Saudi Arabia, one branch in the U.K., an agency in the U.S., and a representative office in Singapore. In May 2023, Riyad Bank signed an agreement with NEOM to finance the $800 million Sindalah Island development project. In July 2023, the bank launched a $1 billion credit portfolio to finance organizations working in the communications and IT sectors.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) 18

• Managing Director and CEO:

Saeed M. Al Tayer

Saeed M. Al Tayer Country: U.A.E. Sector: Utilities Market value: $32.3 billion Sales: $7.9 billion Profits: $2.2 billion Assets: $49.3 billion As the exclusive power and water provider and the dominant cooling services provider in Dubai, DEWA extends its services to 3.6 million people residing in the city and to an active daytime population exceeding 4.8 million. By the end of 2023, DEWA’s installed capacity reached 16,270 megawatts of electricity and 495 million gallons of desalinated water per day. In April 2024, DEWA and Saudi’s ACWA Power also reached the financial closing of the 180 million imperial gallons per day seawater reverse osmosis desalination project in Hassyan, with an investment of $919.5 million.

Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB)

• Managing Director and CEO: Tony Cripps Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $21.9 billion Sales: $5.8 billion Profits: $1.9 billion Assets: $95.1 billion

Morocco F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

SAB was established as the Saudi British Bank in 1978. In 2019, it merged with Alawwal Bank and changed its name to Saudi Awwal Bank in April 2023. It has a network of 103 branches in Saudi Arabia. The bank’s net profit increased by 45.1% in 2023 to $1.9 billion. By the end of 2023, SAB’s mortgage portfolio grew by 27% to hit $7.4 billion. HSBC Holdings B.V holds 31% of the bank, while Olayan Saudi Investment Company owns 20.4%.

Emaar Properties

• Founder and Managing Director:

fashion retail platform Namshi to Noon for $335.2 million. Emaar’s revenue backlog from property sales was worth $21.3 billion as of March 2024, achieving growth of 9% compared to December 2023.

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) 21

• Group CEO: Adnan Chilwan Country: U.A.E. Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $10.8 billion

Mohamed Alabbar

Sales: $5.5 billion Profits: $1.9 billion

Country: U.A.E.

Assets: $85.6 billion

Sector: Real Estate & Construction

DIB provides Shariah-compliant banking services to over five million customers across seven countries, including the U.A.E., Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Bosnia, Kenya, and Türkiye. DIB’s net profit grew by 26.3% to hit $1.9 billion in 2023. In September 2023, DIB announced that it would acquire a 20% stake in Türkiye’s T.O.M. Group, with an option to increase it to 25% within 12 months, in a move to enter the Turkish digital banking and financial technology sector.

Market value: $19.6 billion Sales: $7.3 billion Profits: $4 billion Assets: $38 billion Emaar Properties is among the largest real estate development companies in the Middle East, with a landbank of 1.8 billion square feet in the U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Türkiye. In 2023, Emaar completed the sale of its online

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$29.1 billion

$13.1 billion

$2.3 billion

$161.4 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $103.2 billion

Alinma Bank

• CEO: Abdullah Ali Al Khalifa Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $21.7 billion Sales: $4.3 billion Profits: $1.3 billion

Assets: $63.1 billion

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Alinma Bank was established in 2006 by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Public Pension Agency, and the General Organization for Social Insurance. Today, it serves 4.97 million customers through 110 branches in Saudi Arabia. In February 2024, Alinma Bank purchased Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance’s shares in Arabian Shield Cooperative Insurance Co. for $21.6 million, which represents 5.75% of the company. PIF owns a 10% stake in the bank.

Mashreq

• Group CEO: Ahmed Abdelaal Country: U.A.E. Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $9.8 billion Sales: $5.2 billion Profits: $2.4 billion Assets: $65.3 billion Established in 1967, Mashreq operates through its branches in the U.A.E., Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Qatar, the U.K., and the U.S. The bank’s net profit increased by 127% in 2023 to hit $2.4 billion, While its total assets grew by 21.7% to $65.3 billion. As part of Mashreq’s commitment to facilitate $30 billion in sustainable financing by 2030, the bank collaborated with the U.A.E.-based Galadari Brothers in November 2023 to provide them with their inaugural green loan facility.

Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF) 24

• CEO: Bader Alsalloom Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $11.6 billion Sales: $4.1 billion Profits: $1.1 billion

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Assets: $67.6 billion BSF was known as the French Banque de

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

l’Indochine et de Suez until 1977 when foreign banks in Saudi Arabia were nationalized. Today, the bank has 82 branches and employs 3,189 people across Saudi Arabia. In 2023, BSF’s net profit grew by 18.1% to hit $1.1 billion. In May 2023, BSF issued $900 million in a USD-denominated sukuk. Kingdom Holding Company is the bank’s largest shareholder, with a 16.2% stake.

Ma’aden. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund is the major shareholder in Ma’aden, with a 67.2% stake.

arab national bank (anb) 26

• Managing Director and CEO: Obaid Alrasheed

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) 25

• CEO: Robert Wilt

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $11.4 billion Sales: $4 billion Profits: $1.1 billion

Country: Saudi Arabia

Assets: $58.8 billion

Sector: Industrials Market value: $51 billion Sales: $7.8 billion Profits: $453 million Assets: $29.8 billion

Country: Saudi Arabia

Bahrain

Obaid Alrasheed

Ma’aden is the largest mining company in the Middle East. In April 2024, Ma’aden purchased Mosaic Phosphates B.V.’s shares in Ma’aden Wa’ad Al Shamal Phosphate Company, a joint venture between Ma’aden, Mosaic Phosphates B.V., and SABIC, which represents 25% of the company, in exchange for newly issued shares in

anb operates 125 branches and 57 remittance centers in Saudi Arabia and one branch in the U.K. The bank’s net profit grew by 32.9% in 2023, to $1.1 billion. In May 2023, the bank announced its participation in the establishment of the Arab Bank of Iraq, with $38.2 million in investments, representing 20% of the new bank’s capital. anb has facilitated a total home loan worth $426.7 million to over 3,000 customers in 2023 through a partnership with the Real Estate Development Fund. The Jordan-based Arab Bank owns a 40% stake in anb.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$9 billion

$8.3 billion

$826 million

$64.9 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

increased to 26.97%, and its deposit market share reached 25.21%. In January 2024, Attijariwafa bank Europe signed a $109.4 million risk-sharing agreement with the African Development Bank. Moroccobased Al Mada is the bank’s major shareholder, with a 46.5% stake.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB)

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

• Group CEO: Bassel Gamal Country: Qatar Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $11.6 billion Sales: $3.1 billion Profits: $1.2 billion Assets: $52 billion Established in 1982, QIB was the first Islamic financial institution in Qatar. The bank had a network of 23 branches in Qatar and one branch in Sudan, with investments in the U.K. and Lebanon as of December 2023. In November 2023, QIB issued a $500 million USD-denominated five-year sukuk. Qatar Holding, the investment arm of Qatar Investment Authority, is QIB’s largest shareholder, with a 16.87% stake.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) 27

• Acting Group CEO: Mohammed

sukuk. In February 2024, ADIB announced that its financing program for electric cars, “Volt,” had recorded over 600 new auto finance bookings since its launch in September 2023.

Abdelbary Country: U.A.E. Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $11.1 billion Sales: $3.4 billion Profits: $1.4 billion Assets: $52.5 billion ADIB provides retail, corporate, business, private banking, and wealth management solutions to over 1.3 million customers. Headquartered in the U.A.E., ADIB has an international presence in six markets, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Sudan, Qatar, and Iraq. In 2023, ADIB recorded $52.5 billion in total assets, with net profits of $1.4 billion, an increase of 45.1%. In July 2023, it raised $750 million in a USD-denominated tier-one perpetual

Egypt F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Attijariwafa bank group 28

• Chairman and CEO: Mohamed El Kettani Country: Morocco Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $10.7 billion Sales: $4 billion Profits: $896 million Assets: $65.1 billion Attijariwafa bank group is the largest bank in Morocco and one of the largest in Africa. As of December 2023, it had more than 12 million customers and employed 20,782 people across 27 countries. In 2023, the bank’s loan market share in Morocco

Aldar Properties

• Group CEO: Talal Al Dhiyebi Country: U.A.E. Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $11 billion Sales: $3.9 billion Profits: $1.2 billion Assets: $19.8 billion Aldar Properties is one of the largest real estate developers in the region, with a total landbank of 65.4 million square feet in the U.A.E. In January 2024, Aldar announced that it would invest $272.3 million to expand its logistics real estate business in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In December 2023, Aldar Properties, Mubadala Investment Company, and Ares Management established a new partnership to jointly invest $1 billion in private real estate credit opportunities in the U.K. and Europe, while Aldar will also invest an additional $100 million into an existing European private real estate credit strategy established by Mubadala and Ares in 2021.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$6.1 billion

$4.2 billion

$957 million

$30.5 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

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Talal Al Dhiyebi

Ooredoo Group

• Group CEO: Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo Country: Qatar Sector: Telecommunications Market value: $8.8 billion Sales: $6.4 billion Profits: $965 million

Assets: $16 billion

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Ooredoo is the largest telecom company in Qatar. It had more than 58.5 million customers as of March 2024, reaching 159.3 million customers including its joint venture Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. In December 2023, Ooredoo Group, Zain Group, and TASC Towers Holding signed a definitive agreement to create the largest tower company in the MENA region, valued at $2.2 billion. Qatar Investment Authority owns a 53.28% stake in the group.

Borouge

• CEO: Hazeem Sultan Al Suwaidi Country: U.A.E. Sector: Petrochemicals Market value: $19.9 billion Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo

Sales: $5.8 billion Profits: $1 billion Assets: $8.9 billion Borouge is a petrochemical company that provides differentiated polyolefin solutions for the infrastructure, energy, mobility, healthcare, agriculture, and advanced packaging industries across 86 countries. In June 2022, the company raised more than $2 billion by offering 10% of its total issued share capital on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), becoming one of the Middle East’s largest-ever petrochemicals listings. ADNOC owns a majority 54% stake, and Borealis holds a 36% stake in Borouge.

Industries Qatar (IQ)

• Chairman and Managing Director: Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi Country: Qatar Sector: Industrials Market value: $19.9 billion Sales: $3.2 billion Profits: $1.3 billion

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Assets: $11.8 billion Established in 2003, IQ operates in three main segments—petrochemicals, fertilizers, and steel—through its subsidiaries and joint ventures. In October 2023, IQ’s subsidiary,

Jordan F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Qatar Steel, fully acquired Al Qataria for Production of Reinforcing Steel for $95 million. The Qatar Steel and the Qatar Fertiliser Company are wholly-owned subsidiaries of IQ. QatarEnergy is the major shareholder with a 51% stake.

Zain Group

• Group CEO and Vice Chairman: Bader

an agreement to create the largest tower company in the MENA region, valued at $2.2 billion. In May 2023, the group and Omantel established Zain Omantel International, a joint venture catering to international wholesale services in the telecommunications sector.

Bank Albilad

Nasser Al-Kharafi

• CEO: Abdulaziz Alonaizan

Country: Kuwait

Country: Saudi Arabia

Sector: Telecommunications

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $6.8 billion

Market value: $11.6 billion

Sales: $6.2 billion Profits: $945 million

Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $632 million

Assets: $16.2 billion

Assets: $38.2 billion

The Mobile Telecommunications Company was established in 1983 in Kuwait and rebranded to Zain in 2007. Today, the group operates in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Morocco. It served over 42.4 million active customers as of March 2024. In December 2023, Zain Group, Ooredoo Group, and TASC Towers Holding signed

Bank Albilad provides Shariah-compliant banking services across Saudi Arabia. It had 107 branches as of March 2024. To date, the bank has launched more than 86 social responsibility initiatives and programs. Albilad Investment Company, Albilad Real Estate Company, and Enjaz Payment Services Company are fully owned by Bank Albilad.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$8.3 billion

$6.5 billion

$1.5 billion

$71.3 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

Arab Bank

• CEO: Randa Sadik Country: Jordan Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $3.9 billion

Sales: $4.8 billion Profits: $830 million Arab Bank was established in 1930 in Palestine and moved its headquarters to Amman in 1948. The bank had 68 branches in Jordan and 126 branches abroad as of March 2024. The group’s network spans 29 countries, with 11 key subsidiaries, two affiliates, and one sister company (Arab Bank - Switzerland Ltd). In October 2023, the bank issued $250 million in Additional Tier 1 (AT1) Capital Securities, the first sustainable perpetual AT1 issue in Jordan.

Emaar Development

• Founder: Mohamed Alabbar Country: U.A.E.

Randa Sadik

Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $9.3 billion Sales: $3.2 billion Profits: $2.3 billion Assets: $13.3 billion A majority-owned subsidiary of Emaar Properties, Emaar Development is behind freehold communities in Dubai, including Emirates Living, Downtown Dubai, Dubai Marina, Arabian Ranches, and Dubai Creek Harbour. In 2023, the company launched 27 new projects across various master plans. As of December 2023, Emaar Development had a land bank of 349 million square feet in the U.A.E. The company’s net profit grew by 98.9% in 2023 to hit $2.3 billion. In Q1 2024, the company launched 10 projects and acquired 60 million square feet near The Oasis masterplan, with a development value of $11 billion.

Commercial Bank

• Group CEO: Joseph Abraham Country: Qatar Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $4.7 billion Sales: $3.3 billion Profits: $827 million Assets: $45.2 billion

Oman F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Commercial Bank operates in Qatar and has a presence in Türkiye through its fullyowned subsidiary, Alternatif Bank. It owns and operates the Diners Club franchise in Qatar and Türkiye. In April 2023, it issued $117.9 million in a three-year privately placed QAR-denominated bond. The group recorded a net profit of $827 million in 2023, an increase of 7.1% compared to 2022. The Qatar Investment Authority owned 16.4% of the bank as of March 2024.

customers daily. In July 2023, Almarai issued a $750 million USD-denominated Sukuk as part of its $2 billion Trust Certificate Issuance Program. In December 2023, it acquired Etmam Logistics for $48.5 million.

Etihad Etisalat Company (Mobily) 40

• CEO: Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Badran

Almarai

Country: Saudi Arabia

• CEO: Abdullah Albader

Sector: Telecommunications

Country: Saudi Arabia

Market value: $10.6 billion

Sector: Food & Beverages

Sales: $4.5 billion Profits: $595 million

Market value: $15 billion

Assets: $10.4 billion

Sales: $5.2 billion Profits: $547 million

Established in 2004, Mobily is a Saudi telecommunications services provider. It had a customer base of 12.3 million mobile subscribers and 298,000 fiber-to-the-home subscribers as of March 2024. Mobily’s net profit grew by 34.7% in 2023 to over $595 million. e& is the major shareholder with a nearly 28% stake. In January 2024, the company signed a $1.3 billion Murabaha financing agreement with the Saudi National Bank.

Assets: $9.7 billion Almarai is one of the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy companies and one of the region’s largest food and beverage manufacturing and distribution companies. The company operates in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Egypt, Jordan, the U.S., and Argentina, among other countries. It delivers its products to over 100,000

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$7.2 billion

$9.7 billion

$1.4 billion

$55.7 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $68.3 billion

ADNOC Distribution

• CEO: Bader Al Lamki Country: U.A.E. Sector: Retail Market value: $11.8 billion Sales: $9.4 billion Profits: $716 million Assets: $5.1 billion

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

ADNOC Distribution is the largest fuel distributor in the U.A.E., with 532 service stations as of March 2024. It also operates 69 stations in Saudi Arabia and 245 stations in Egypt through the acquisition of a 50% stake in TotalEnergies Marketing Egypt. In Q1 2024, it opened eight new service stations, expanding its total network to 846 stations. In 2023, it launched the ADNOC Mobile Vehicle Inspection Centre in Abu Dhabi in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Police.

BCP Group

• Chairman and CEO: Mohamed Karim Mounir Abdulrahman Abdulla Al Seiari

Country: Morocco Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $5.9 billion Sales: $2.9 billion Profits: $409 million Assets: $51.4 billion Established in 1926, the BCP Group had a presence in 32 countries, including 18 countries in Africa, as of March 2023. It had approximately 9.3 million customers as of June 2023. In October 2023, the bank signed a financing partnership worth $36 million with the International Finance Corporation and the Compagnie Marocaine de GoutteàGoutte et de Pompage to support the development of precision irrigation, solar energy, and effective water management systems in Morocco.

branches and over 111 ATMs across Qatar. It also operates internationally, with subsidiaries in the U.A.E., the U.K., and France. In February 2024, U.K.-based Al Rayan Bank partnered with Educate A Child International to launch a new fixed-term deposit aimed at advancing education for marginalized and vulnerable children and young people.

Masraf Al Rayan

ACWA Power

Country: Qatar Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $6.3 billion Sales: $2.7 billion Profits: $407 million

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Assets: $45.1 billion Masraf Al Rayan provides Shariahcompliant banking services through 16

Banks & Financial Services F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

ADNOC Drilling

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Energy

• CEO: Marco Arcelli Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Utilities Market value: $81.9 billion Assets: $14.7 billion

• Group CEO: Fahad Al Khalifa

• CEO: Abdulrahman Abdulla Al Seiari

Sales: $1.6 billion Profits: $472 million 43

hydrogen project in Egypt with a capacity of 600,000 tons per year of green ammonia at an investment of more than $4 billion, with the intention of scaling it up to a second phase, with a potential capacity of two million tons per year.

ACWA Power develops, operates, and invests in power generation, water desalination, and green hydrogen plants. The company’s total aggregate power capacity of its operational, underconstruction, and advanced development projects is approximately 55 GW, while its total water desalination capacity reached 7.6 million m3 per day. In December 2023, the company signed an agreement with the Egyptian authorities to develop a green

Market value: $16.7 billion Sales: $3.1 billion Profits: $1 billion Assets: $6.7 billion ADNOC Drilling is one of the largest integrated drilling service companies in the world by rig fleet size, with a total of 137 rigs as of March 2024. In November 2023, ADNOC Drilling and Alpha Dhabi agreed to establish a strategic investment joint venture to invest up to $1.5 billion to acquire technology-enabled companies in the oilfield services and energy sectors. In June 2023, the company was awarded five 10-year contracts totaling approximately $2 billion in support of ADNOC Offshore’s growing drilling operations.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$581 billion

$223.5 billion

$56.8 billion

$3.3 trillion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

SABIC Agri-Nutrients Company 46

• CEO: Fahad Al-Battar Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Industrials

Market value: $13.8 billion Assets: $6.7 billion The SABIC Agri-Nutrients Company was formerly known as the Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company. It provides agri-nutrient products and chemicals, including urea, ammonia, phosphates, nitrogen-based inorganic products, and small volumes of organic industrial chemicals. With a production of 8.3 million metric tons in 2023, the company supplied over seven million metric tons globally and processed over 4,500 orders. SABIC owns a 50.1% stake in SABIC Agri-Nutrients Company.

Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) 47

• CEO: Bernd van Linder Country: U.A.E. Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $5.5 billion Sales: $2.3 billion Profits: $722 million Assets: $35.1 billion Established in 1969, CBD offers conventional and Islamic banking products and services. It operates through a network of 14 branches and 167 ATMs and CDMs. The bank’s net profits jumped by 45.2% in 2023 to $722 million. In June 2023, CBD raised $500 million through its inaugural green bond issuance. The Investment Corporation of Dubai is the largest shareholder, with a 20% stake.

Waleed Khamis Al Hashar AD Ports Group has five business clusters— ports, economic cities and free zones, maritime and shipping, logistics, and digital—and is active in 46 countries as of December 2023. In 2023, AD Ports Group inaugurated the Aqaba Cruise Terminal in Jordan. In March 2023, the group signed a 30-year agreement to develop and operate Safaga Port in Egypt, with a $200 million investment, and two 15-year agreements to develop two cement terminals in Al Arish and West Port Said ports. In April 2024, the group partnered with ADNOC Distribution to leverage AD Ports’ network to distribute lubricants in the U.A.E., with plans to expand globally.

49 48

AD Ports Group

• Managing Director and Group CEO:

Emirates Islamic

• CEO: Farid Al Mulla Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Country: U.A.E.

Market value: $9.8 billion

Sector: Logistics

Sales: $1.7 billion Profits: $578 million

Market value: $7.6 billion

Assets: $23.9 billion

Sales: $3.2 billion Profits: $370 million

Emirates Islamic, formerly Middle East Bank, was incorporated in 1975 and

Telecommunications

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Bank Muscat

• CEO: Waleed Khamis Al Hashar Country: Oman Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $5.1 billion Sales: $2.1 billion Profits: $552 million Assets: $35.5 billion

Country: U.A.E.

Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi

Assets: $15.1 billion

converted to Islamic banking in 2004. Emirates Islamic is a subsidiary of Emirates NBD, which owns 99.9% of the bank. Emirates Islamic now operates through 40 branches in the U.A.E. In April 2024, Emirates Islamic closed a $500 million Shariah-compliant financing facility to further strengthen the bank’s balance sheet and support its growth ambitions.

Established in 1982, Bank Muscat operates 183 branches across Oman and one branch each in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with three representative offices in the U.A.E, Singapore, and Iran. It has over 2.6 million customers. In October 2023, Bank Muscat’s investment banking division managed the OQ Gas Networks’ $748 million IPO, Oman’s largest-ever IPO.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$137.8 billion

$68.6 billion

$11.3 billion

$163.9 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Sales: $2.9 billion Profits: $1 billion

PureHealth Holding

• Group CEO and Cofounder: Shaista Asif Country: U.A.E. Sector: Healthcare Market value: $11.8 billion Sales: $4.5 billion Profits: $263 million Assets: $7.7 billion

Shaista Asif

Commercial International Bank (CIB) 51

• CEO and Managing Director: Hussein Abaza

Country: Egypt

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

million in January 2023 and rebranded it to CIB Kenya Limited. Alpha Oryx Limited—a subsidiary of the U.A.E.’s ADQ—owns an 18.37% stake in the bank.

PureHealth Holding provides healthcare services through a network of over 100 hospitals, more than 300 clinics, multiple diagnostic centers, health insurance solutions, and pharmacies, among others. In December 2023, PureHealth Holding raised $986 million by offering 10% of its issued share capital on ADX. The IPO was oversubscribed 483 times in the retail tranche and 54 times in the professional subscriber tranche. In January 2024, the company acquired the U.K.’s Circle Health Group for $1.2 billion.

Savola Group

• Group CEO: Waleed Khalid Fatani Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Food & Beverages

Maroc Telecom

Market value: $7.3 billion

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

• Chairman of the Managing Board:

Sales: $7.2 billion Profits: $285 million

Market value: $4.7 billion

Abdeslam Ahizoune

Assets: $8 billion

Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $619 million

Country: Morocco

Assets: $17.4 billion

Sector: Telecommunications

CIB was established in 1975 as a joint venture between Chase Manhattan Bank and the National Bank of Egypt. In 2023, it had 193 branches and 15 units. The bank has more than 2.1 million customers and has a presence in Africa through its subsidiaries. It acquired the remaining 49% stake in Mayfair-CIB Bank in Kenya for $40

Market value: $8.4 billion

The Savola Group primarily focuses on the food and retail sectors through Savola Foods and Savola Retail. In 2023, Savola acquired the remaining 1.13% stake in Panda Retail for $16 million, gaining full ownership. In April 2024, the Savola Group applied to the Capital Market Authority to increase its capital by offering a $1.6 billion rights issue and distributing its entire 34.52% stake in the dairy firm Almarai to its eligible shareholders.

Industrials F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Sales: $3.6 billion Profits: $609 million Assets: $6.5 billion Maroc Telecom is Morocco’s primary telecommunications operator. Its customer base was up 2.7% to 77.1 million subscribers in Q1 2024. Established in

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$106.2 billion

$26.8 billion

$4.8 billion

$68.5 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

43 TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

1998 after the split of the National Post and Telecommunications Office (ONPT), Maroc Telecom is now present in 11 African countries. Maroc Telecom, listed on the Casablanca and Paris exchanges, is primarily owned by the Société de Participation dans les Télécommunications, which is controlled by e& and holds a 53% stake. The government of Morocco owned a 22% share in the company as of April 2024.

Saudi Investment Bank (SAIB) 55

• CEO: Faisal Al-Omran Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $4.5 billion Assets: $34.7 billion SAIB provides commercial, retail, and investment banking services as well as Shariah-compliant banking products and services across 51 branches in Saudi Arabia. SAIB recorded total assets of $34.7 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.2% compared to 2022. The bank’s net profit increased by 16.8% to $470 million. In October 2023, SAIB signed a partnership with Real Madrid CF, becoming its official bank in Saudi Arabia.

Bank Of Africa

Yasser Zaghloul

• Chairman and CEO: Othman Benjelloun Country: Morocco Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $4.1 billion Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $403 million Assets: $38.4 billion Bank Of Africa was established in 1959 as Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur and became Bank Of Africa in 2020. As of October 2023, the bank had operations across 32 countries, serving over 6.6 million customers. It has 609 branches and points of sale in Africa, contributing 49% of net income attributable to shareholders of the parent company. RMA Watanya is the largest shareholder, with a 27.41% stake.

Asia. In October 2023, the NMDC group announced the official launch of its new brand identity, which will be applied to all the group’s subsidiaries, including NMDC Dredging & Marine, NMDC Energy, NMDC Engineering, and NMDC Construction. It owned a marine fleet of more than 120 vessels as of December 2023. In January 2024, ADNOC awarded NMDC Group the DAS Island Reclamation Project for TAMKEEN with a total value of $56.9 million.

NMDC Group

Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $560 million

Country: Oman

Assets: $4.2 billion

Sales: $7.6 billion Profits: $819 million

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Industrials Market value: $5.9 billion Sales: $4.5 billion Profits: $587 million Assets: $5.7 billion Founded in 1976, NMDC Group provides dredging, reclamation, and marine construction projects in energy and marine services, engineering, procurement, and construction across MENA and South

Utilities F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

• Group CEO and CFO: Faisal Al Nassar Market value: $29.4 billion

• CEO: Talal Al Mamari

Market value: $2 billion

• Group CEO: Yasser Zaghloul

Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Services Group (HMG) 59

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Healthcare

Omantel

Sector: Telecommunications 57

Services signed a strategic agreement to establish sovereign cloud capabilities for Oman. Omantel has a 21.9% ownership stake in the Zain Group.

Assets: $20.1 billion Omantel has been providing telecommunications services in Oman since 1970. Its domestic mobile subscriber base, including mobile resellers, hit 3.18 million as of December 2023. In February 2024, Omantel partnered with Google to launch the first Google Distributed Cloud Edge solution in the META region, enabling faster data processing and reduced latency. A month later, Omantel and Amazon Web

HMG began as Al Olaya Medical Complex in 1995. As of December 2023, the group had 25 medical facilities, with a collective total of over 1,900 beds. In 2023, HMG’s team of over 17,000 people provided care to more than six million patients. In 2024, a major shareholder in HMG, Mohammed Abdulaziz Al Habib and Sons Holding Company, transferred 17.4 million shares to an affiliated investment portfolio they fully own, resulting in reducing the direct ownership stake from nearly 33.8% to 28.8% currently. Founder and Chairman Sulaiman Bin Abdulaziz Al Habib has a 40% stake in the company.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$230.3 billion

$46.2 billion

$10.5 billion

$262.9 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

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TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Sales: $2.2 billion Profits: $470 million

of December 2023, it served more than 150,000 customers through nine branches, six digital e-channels, and 67 ATMs. The General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority is the largest shareholder, with a 24.54% stake, as of May 2024.

• CEO: Fahad Al Hassawi Country: U.A.E. Sector: Telecommunications Market value: $6.9 billion Sales: $3.7 billion Profits: $454 million Assets: $4.8 billion

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Abdulkareem Al Masabi

du offers fixed, mobile, wholesale, broadcasting, and associated telecommunication services in the U.A.E. Its mobile customer base grew 5.7% YoY to 8.7 million subscribers as of Q1 2024. In February 2024, du partnered with Amazon Web Services to build a cloud center of excellence and agreed with Microsoft to strengthen cybersecurity standards in the telecom industry. It also launched du Pay in April 2024 in the U.A.E., offering a wide range of digital financial services and payment options, including international money transfers, peer-to-peer transfers, mobile topups, and bill payments. Emirates Investment Authority owns over 50.12% of the company.

ADNOC Logistics & Services

construction contract for a new offshore artificial island by ADNOC Offshore.

• CEO: Abdulkareem Al Masabi

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Logistics

• Acting Group CEO: Ahmed Hashem

Country: Bahrain Sector: Industrials

Market value: $8 billion

Country: Qatar

Market value: $4.8 billion

Sales: $2.8 billion Profits: $620 million

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Sales: $4.1 billion Profits: $314 million

Assets: $5.7 billion

Market value: $5.6 billion

Assets: $6.8 billion

ADNOC L&S, the logistics arm of ADNOC Group, had over 100 global customers in more than 50 countries and a fleet of 233 vessels as of December 2023. In June 2023, ADNOC L&S was listed on ADX following its $769 million IPO. The IPO was oversubscribed 163 times, the highest-ever oversubscription level for a U.A.E. bookbuild IPO, with a total demand of over $125 billion. In June 2023, ADNOC L&S was awarded a $975 million engineering, procurement, and

Sales: $1.7 billion Profits: $358 million

Alba is one of the world’s largest aluminum smelters, producing more than 1.62 million metric tons in 2023. In January 2024, Alba inked a 10-year gas supply deal with Bapco Energies with a fixed price structure for the first five-year period at $4 per million British thermal units (MMBTU). The company’s net profits declined by 71.6% in 2023 to hit $314 million. The company is dually listed on the Bahrain Bourse and the London Stock Exchange.

Energy F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Dukhan Bank

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) 63

• CEO: Ali Al Baqali

Assets: $31.4 billion Dukhan Bank was incorporated in 2008 as Barwa Bank and began operating as a full-service Shariah-compliant bank in 2009. It rebranded to Dukhan Bank in October 2020, following a merger with the International Bank of Qatar in 2019. The bank was listed on the Qatar Stock Exchange in February 2023. As

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$2 trillion

$519.7 billion

$127.5 billion

$704.1 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

45 TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) 62

Boubyan Bank

• Vice-Chairman and Group CEO: Adel Abdul Wahab Al-Majed Country: Kuwait Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $8 billion Assets: $27.3 billion Boubyan Bank provides Islamic retail banking, corporate banking, and wealth management services. It was established in 2004 and had 48 branches across Kuwait as of December 2023. It has three principal operating subsidiaries: BLME Holdings, the Boubyan Takaful Insurance Company, and the Boubyan Capital Investment Company. In 2023, Boubyan Bank recorded net profits of $254 million, at a growth rate of 44% compared to 2022, with total assets of $27.3 billion.

Bank AlJazira (BAJ)

• CEO and Managing Director: Naif A. Al Abdulkareem Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $4.4 billion Sales: $2 billion Profits: $272 million Assets: $34.5 billion Established in 1975, BAJ provides Shariahcompliant banking services across Saudi Arabia. As of December 2023, it had 75 branches and 52 Fawri remittance centers in Saudi Arabia. In June 2023, the bank issued a SAR-denominated additional Tier 1 sukuk of $533.3 million, which is part of an additional Tier 1 Capital Sukuk program of $1.3 billion. In 2023, BAJ recorded $34.5 billion in total assets, while its net profit declined by 8% to $272 million.

• CEO and Vice-Chairman: Tarek Sultan Country: Kuwait Sector: Logistics Market value: $2.5 billion Sales: $4.4 billion Profits: $350 million Assets: $12.2 billion Founded in 1979, Agility has been listed on

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Boursa Kuwait since 1984. Its subsidiary, Agility Global, listed 10.4 billion shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in May 2024. The Agility Group’s companies operate in aviation services, logistics parks, liquid fuel logistics businesses, customs digitization, remote infrastructure services, e-commerce enablement, and commercial real estate management.

mobile seawater desalination plant was awarded a Guinness World Record for being the largest of its kind, measuring 123 meters in length, with a daily output of 50,000 cubic meters.

National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri)

Country: U.A.E.

• CEO: Ahmed Ali Alsubaey

Fertiglobe

• CEO: Ahmed El-Hoshy Sector: Industrials Market value: $6.4 billion Sales: $2.4 billion Profits: $505 million Assets: $4.6 billion

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Logistics Market value: $5.4 billion Sales: $2.3 billion Profits: $478 million

Agility

Investments

Adel Abdul Wahab Al-Majed

Assets: $6.2 billion Founded in 1978, Bahri is a maritime logistics and transportation conglomerate. As of March 2024, the group operated 88 owned vessels and 13 vessels under a lease contract. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund owns 22.6% of Bahri, and Saudi Aramco Development Company (SADCO) owns 20%. In February 2024, Bahri Desalination’s

Established in 2019 as a strategic partnership between ADNOC and OCI Global, today Fertiglobe operates four production facilities across the U.A.E., Egypt, and Algeria, with an annual production capacity of 5.1 million metric tons of urea and 1.6 million metric tons of merchant ammonia, making it the largest producer of nitrogen fertilizers in the MENA region. In December 2023, ADNOC and OCI entered into a binding agreement for ADNOC to purchase OCI’s entire 50% stake in Fertiglobe for $3.62 billion, increasing ADNOC’s shareholding to 86.2%.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$288.7 billion

$34.7 billion

$13.4 billion

$170.5 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

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TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Sales: $1.4 billion Profits: $254 million

Bupa Arabia

• CEO: Tal Nazer Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Insurance Market value: $9.7 billion Sales: $4.4 billion Profits: $251 million Assets: $3.9 billion

47 TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

In 1997, Bupa Arabia was launched through a joint venture between Bupa and the Nazer Group. The company employs over 2,000 people. Bupa Investments Overseas Limited owned 43.25% of the company and Nazer Group owned 5% as of May 2024. In January 2024, its subsidiary Health Horizon Medical Co. obtained a final license to practice Telehealthcare and Telemedicine.

National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAKBANK) 70

• Group CEO: Raheel Ahmed Country: U.A.E.

Dana Nasser Al Sabah

Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $2.8 billion Sales: $1.7 billion Profits: $486 million Assets: $20.1 billion RAKBANK provides retail, commercial, Islamic banking, and treasury services with 19 branches as of March 2024. It is 49.35% owned by the Government of Ras Al Khaimah. In December 2023, it announced that it would contribute to the U.A.E. banking sector’s 2030 pledge to commit $272.3 billion to sustainable finance at COP28. In 2023, it recorded $486 million in net profits a growth of 53.4% compared to 2022.

was awarded a $500 million engineering, procurement, and construction contract to expand the ethylene cracker plant at the Saudi Ethylene and Polyethylene Company. In 2023, it established a corporate venture capital, Sipchem InnoVent SA. It has 18 subsidiaries in Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Singapore, including the Sahara Petrochemicals Company, Sipchem Europe Cooperative U.A., and Sipchem Asia PTE Ltd.

• CEO: Abdullah Al-Saadoon

Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) -KIPCO 72

Market value: $1.9 billion

Country: Saudi Arabia

Sales: $4.2 billion Profits: $216 million

Sector: Petrochemicals

Assets: $40.1 billion

Market value: $6.1 billion Sales: $2 billion Profits: $362 million

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Assets: $5.9 billion Sipchem operates in the polymer and petrochemical sectors across more than 100 countries. In December 2023, the company

Logistics F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

solutions by stc

• CEO: Omer Abdullah Alnomany Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Technology

Sahara International • Group CEO: Dana Nasser Al Sabah Petrochemical Company Country: Kuwait (Sipchem) Sector: Investments 71

Group to Fairfax Financial Holdings for $832 million, resulting in a net profit of $237 million for KIPCO. In April 2024, KIPCO’s OSN Group acquired a 55.45% stake in the Abu Dhabi-based music and entertainment streaming platform Anghami.

KIPCO is a holding company focused mainly on investments in financial services, media, and real estate. It recently expanded into new sectors, including energy, foodstuff, healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics. In December 2023, the company completed the sale of its 46% stake in Gulf Insurance

Market value: $11 billion Sales: $2.9 billion Profits: $319 million Assets: $3.1 billion solutions by stc provides services such as system Integration, connectivity, business outsourcing, cloud services, cybersecurity integration, and IoT digital services. It serves several sectors, including education, government, real estate, financial services, manufacturing, retail, oil and gas, telecommunications, healthcare, and transportation. In February 2024, it completed its acquisition of 40% of Devoteam Middle East, a subsidiary of Devoteam Group valued at $197.8 million. In April 2023, it acquired the Contact Center Company, with an enterprise value of around $120 million.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$29.3 billion

$14 billion

$2.2 billion

$48 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

Nakilat

• CEO: Abdullah Al-Sulaiti Country: Qatar Sector: Logistics Market value: $5.8 billion Sales: $1.3 billion Profits: $428 million Assets: $8.8 billion Established in 2004, Nakilat is a shipping and maritime company. It has one of the world’s largest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) shipping fleets, comprising 69 LNG carriers, four very large LPG carriers, a floating storage and regasification unit, and an order book of 27 new LNG carriers and four new LPG carriers. In January 2024, Nakilat placed orders with Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries to construct six gas vessels that are set to be delivered between 2026 and 2027.

Qatar Fuel (WOQOD)

• Managing Director and CEO: Saad Rashid Al-Muhannadi Country: Qatar Sector: Retail Market value: $3.9 billion

Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al-Deghaither

Sales: $7.7 billion Profits: $280 million Assets: $4 billion WOQOD is the sole distributor of fuel products throughout Qatar. In 2023, the number of petrol stations had more than doubled in six years, with 126 fuel stations in operation, with the addition of four newly constructed stations. In August 2023, the group and QatarEnergy extended their agreement for the sale and purchase of petroleum products for an additional five years until September 2028. As of Q1 2024, the group had installed 25 electric charging points in 19 petrol stations in coordination with KAHRAMAA. QatarEnergy holds a 20% stake in WOQOD.

The Company for Cooperative Insurance (Tawuniya) 76

• CEO: Othman Alkassabi Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Insurance Market value: $6.1 billion Sales: $4.2 billion Profits: $164 million Assets: $4.9 billion

Insurance F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Tawuniya offers more than 60 types of insurance to its customers in Saudi Arabia, including medical, motor, fire, property, engineering, casualty, marine, aviation, Takaful, and liability. The company’s net profits jumped 104% to $164 million. The General Organization for Social Insurance owns 25.9% of Tawuniya.

Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB) 77

• CEO: Abdulbasit Al Shaibei

is the largest shareholder in QIIB, with a 16.62% stake as of May 2024.

Zain KSA

• CEO: Sultan Bin Abdulaziz AlDeghaither Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Telecommunications Market value: $2.9 billion Sales: $2.6 billion Profits: $338 million

Country: Qatar

Assets: $7.3 billion

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Established in 2007, Zain KSA has 8.8 million subscribers and 4,377 points of sale and offers 5G services in more than 66 cities. In 2023, the company completed a tower infrastructure sale and leaseback to the Golden Lattice Investment Company for more than $805 million and signed a framework agreement with the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement Program (Shareek) to launch hyper-scale data centers. In May 2024, Zain KSA announced its plans to invest $426.7 million in 5G network expansion in the kingdom.

Market value: $4.2 billion Sales: $1 billion Profits: $320 million Assets: $16.9 billion QIIB is a privately owned Islamic bank operating in Qatar through a network of 17 branches, one digital branch, and over 84 ATMs. In January 2024, QIIB issued a $500 million five-year sustainable sukuk “Oryx” as part of its $2 billion Sukuk program. The Qatar Investment Authority

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$17.7 billion

$10.6 billion

$584 million

$16.6 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

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TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Gulf Bank

• Acting CEO: Waleed Mandani Country: Kuwait Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $3.2 billion Sales: $1.3 billion Profits: $231 million

Assets: $23.3 billion

Saudi Aramco Base Oil Company (Luberef)

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Established in 1960 and listed on the Boursa Kuwait in 1984, Gulf Bank today has over 50 branches and 300 ATMs in Kuwait. In November 2023, the bank launched the Gulf Capital Investment Company to oversee assets worth $3.2 billion. In February 2024, Gulf Bank opened its first environmentally friendly branch in Sabah Al-Ahmad city.

Samer A. Al-Hokail

• President and CEO: Samer A. Al-Hokail Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Energy Market value: $6.6 billion Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $403 million Assets: $2.4 billion Luberef is one of the largest producers of Group I and II base oils globally. It also produces various byproducts, including asphalt, marine heavy fuel oil, slack wax, extract, and sulfur. It has two facilities located on the maritime Silk Road in Yanbu and Jeddah, with a combined capacity of 1.5 million metric tonnes per annum of base oils. In February 2023, it announced the signing of an engineering, procurement, and construction contract with PETROJET for project expansion to increase the Yanbu facility base oil production capacity to approximately 1.3 million MT per annum by 2025.

Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) 82

• CEO: Abdel Wahab Al Rowwad Country: Jordan Sector: Industrials

Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) 81

Market value: $4.4 billion Sales: $1.7 billion Profits: $629 million

• CEO: Talal Ibrahim Almaiman

Assets: $3 billion

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Investments

Founded in 1949, JPMC operates in the mining and phosphate fertilizer manufacturing sectors. In 2023, the company produced ready dry phosphate of 11.5 million tons, an increase of 1.74% compared to 2022, the highest number in the history of JPMC. The company

Market value: $7 billion Sales: $721 million Profits: $264 million Assets: $14.4 billion IMAGE FROM SOURCE

company that has been listed on the Saudi Exchange since 2007. It has a diverse investment portfolio across 18 sectors and has investments in social media platform X, hospitality group Four Seasons, aviation company flynas, banking groups Citigroup and Banque Saudi Fransi, and e-commerce giant JD.com, among others. In October 2023, KHC and Red Sea Global signed a $533.3 million joint venture to develop and own the Four Seasons Resort Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, which is expected to open in early 2025. The company’s chairman Alwaleed bin Talal owns 78.1% of the company.

Founded in 1980, KHC is a public joint stock

Real Estate & Construction F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

is working on establishing a diversified fertilizer company with the Arab Potash Company at a cost of $600 million, with a production capacity of more than 400,000 tons of fertilizer and phosphoric acid and estimated sales of $400 million annually.

Elm

• CEO: Abdulrahman Aljadhai Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Technology Market value: $19.4 billion Sales: $1.6 billion Profits: $362 million Assets: $2.2 billion Elm provides digital solutions to government entities, businesses, and society in Saudi Arabia. Elm also works through its subsidiaries to provide digital products, omni-channel platforms, professional and specialized solutions and services, as well as business outsourcing services. Among its products are the Absher platform, which is supervised by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior and the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority, and the Nusuk Platform, which is owned by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah. In September 2023, the company signed a $133.3 million Shariahcompliant banking facilities agreement with alrajhi bank. The Public Investment Fund is the major shareholder, with a 67% stake.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$39.9 billion

$14.4 billion

$7.6 billion

$71.1 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

Bank ABC

• Group CEO: Sael Al Waary Country: Bahrain Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $951 million

Sales: $3.4 billion Profits: $296 million Bank ABC offers international wholesale banking services in 15 countries across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia. In March 2024, Bank ABC Egypt completed its merger with BLOM Bank Egypt, tripling its market share. In December 2023, Bank ABC and Yellow Door Energy signed a multi-million-dollar agreement to finance Majid Al Futtaim’s solar power projects in the U.A.E., Bahrain, and Oman. The Central Bank of Libya and the Kuwait Investment Authority are its major shareholders.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait (Al-Tijari) 85

• CEO: Elham Mahfouz

Vince Cook

Country: Kuwait Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $3 billion Sales: $892 million Profits: $361 million Assets: $13.6 billion Al-Tijari is the second oldest bank in Kuwait, operating through banking and investment activities. It also provides brokerage services through its subsidiary, the Al-Tijari Financial Brokerage Company. Al-Sharq Holding Company owns 23.9% of the bank. Al-Tijari has a 7.3% stake in Boubyan Bank.

Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWC) 86

• Managing Director and General

generation and water desalination companies, including 80% in Ras Laffan Power Company, 55% in Qatar Power Company, and 40% in Mesaieed Power Company, among others. The company is the main supplier of electricity and desalinated water in Qatar, with a market share of 55% of electricity and 73% of water.

• Group CEO: Adel Abdulla Ali Country: U.A.E.

Sales: $1.6 billion Profits: $421 million Air Arabia operates a fleet of 74 Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In 2023, it added 26 new routes to its global network, bringing the total network size to 206 routes from seven operational hubs. Its available capacity increased by 26% during 2023 compared to 2022. Air Arabia

QEWC was established in 1990. It holds shares in several domestic electricity

Retail F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Sector: Banks & Financial Services Sales: $973 million Profits: $197 million

Market value: $3.4 billion

Country: Qatar Sector: Utilities

Assets: $6.4 billion

Country: U.A.E. Market value: $3.2 billion

Sector: Aviation

Assets: $4 billion

Sales: $800 million Profits: $429 million

National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) 88

• CEO: Vince Cook

Air Arabia

Manager: Mohammed Nasser Al-Hajri Market value: $4.6 billion

served more than 16.7 million passengers in 2023, a 31% surge compared to 2022. Sharjah Asset Management Company is the largest shareholder in the company, with an 18.6% stake.

Assets: $14.1 billion Established in 1982, NBF serves approximately 12,000 corporate customers and 30,000 individuals across 14 branches and 52 ATM and CDM units in the U.A.E. The bank’s net profit surged by 113% in 2023 to reach $197 million. The bank has two wholly-owned subsidiary companies: NBF Financial Services and NBF Markets (Cayman) Limited. The Fujairah government has a 46.8% stake in NBF.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$23.3 billion

$19.5 billion

$1.3 billion

$10.7 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $43.9 billion

and ABQ Finance Limited. The Qatar Investment Authority owned 47.71% of the bank as of May 2024.

National Bank of Bahrain Group (NBB Group) 92

• Group CEO: Usman Ahmed Country: Bahrain Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $3.2 billion Sales: $823 million Profits: $216 million Assets: $14.3 billion Established in 1957, NBB Group operates in Bahrain, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia. The bank owns 78.8% of the Bahrain Islamic Bank, which operates under an Islamic retail banking license. In March 2024, NBB launched a new digital personal financing option through its digital banking app (NBB Digital). In February 2024, the bank launched a mortgage bundling package whereby property buyers can combine their solar financing as part of their mortgage package.

Hassan Ahmed AlEfrangi

Burgan Bank Group

• Group CEO: Antoine Jean Daher Country: Kuwait Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $2.1 billion Sales: $1.8 billion Profits: $147 million Assets: $24.1 billion Established in 1977, the Burgan Bank Group is a majority-owned subsidiary of KIPCO. The bank’s subsidiaries include Burgan Bank Türkiye, Gulf Bank Algeria, and Tunis International Bank with a network of 126 branches. In 2023, the bank completed the sale of a 52% stake in Burgan Bank Türkiye for $187.8 million, as well as its 51.8% stake in Bank of Baghdad for $125 million.

• CEO: Mohamed Bedeir Country: Egypt

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Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $1.4 billion

Food & Beverages F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Assets: $13.1 billion

• President and CEO: Mohammed Berki

Established in April 1978, QNB ALAHLI has more than 1.8 million clients and 234 branches. It has four subsidiaries: QNB ALAHLI Leasing, QNB ALAHLI Life Insurance, QNB ALAHLI Factoring, and QNB ALAHLI Asset Management Egypt Company. The QNB Group has a majority stake of 94.97% of the bank.

Al-Zuabi

Ahlibank

• CEO: Hassan Ahmed AlEfrangi Country: Qatar Sector: Banks & Financial Services Market value: $2.6 billion Sales: $935 million Profits: $230 million Assets: $16.6 billion

QNB ALAHLI

Marafiq

Sales: $1.8 billion Profits: $338 million

Ahlibank operates a network of 11 branches and 92 ATMs across Qatar. The bank recorded a net profit of $230 million in 2023, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2022. Ahlibank has two fully-owned subsidiaries, Ahli Brokerage Company

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Utilities Market value: $4.3 billion Sales: $1.7 billion Profits: $140 million Assets: $6.1 billion Established in 2000, Marafiq provides potable water and seawater for cooling, industrial and sanitary wastewater collection and treatment, and other utility services to clients in the industrial, commercial, residential, and governmental sectors in Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia. The company’s main shareholders are the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, SABIC, the Saudi Aramco Power Company, and PIF with a 17.5% stake each. Marafiq has a 3.2% share of the total energy capacity in Saudi Arabia. In 2023, Marafiq announced the completion of the water interconnection project with Saline Water Conversion Corporation, and completed the expansion project of the new wastewater treatment plant in Jubail, with a capacity of 120,000 cubic meters per day.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$22.3 billion

$12.4 billion

$833 million

$17.6 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Doha Bank

• Group CEO: Abdulrahman bin Fahad Al-Thani Country: Qatar Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Market value: $1.3 billion Profits: $211 million Assets: $27.8 billion Established in 1979, Doha Bank provides conventional banking activities. It has 16 branches in Qatar, overseas branches in the U.A.E., Kuwait, and India, and representative offices in the U.K., Singapore, Türkiye, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Nepal. In March 2024, the bank issued a $500 million international bond under its EMTN program. The Qatar Investment Authority holds a 17.15% stake, as of May 2024.

Sharjah Islamic Bank (SIB)

Amarpal Sandhu

Country: U.A.E.

• CEO: Amarpal Sandhu

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait (ABK)

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Retail

• Acting Group CEO: Abdulla Al Sumait

Market value: $2 billion

Market value: $7.5 billion

Country: Kuwait

Sales: $1 billion Profits: $232 million

Sales: $2.4 billion Profits: $262 million

Sector: Banks & Financial Services

Assets: $17.9 billion

Assets: $1.6 billion

Market value: $1.9 billion

Established in 1975, SIB transitioned to Islamic banking in 2002. Today, it provides Shariah-compliant, retail, corporate, and investment products and services through 32 branches in the U.A.E. It also provides hospitality, brokerage, and real estate services through its three fully-owned subsidiaries, Sharjah National Hotels, Sharjah Islamic Financial Services, and ASAS Real Estate. The bank’s net profit grew by 30.8% in 2023 to reach $232 million. In March 2024, the bank signed a $100 million three-year Murabaha financing agreement with Türkiye Wealth Fund.

Americana Restaurants is one of the largest out-of-home dining and quickservice restaurant operators, with a portfolio of global brands, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee’s, Krispy Kreme, Peet’s Coffee, Wimpy, TGIF, Costa Coffee, and Baskin Robbins. The company operates 2,456 stores across 12 countries in MENA and Kazakhstan. Adeptio AD Investments Ltd—which is equally owned indirectly by Saudi’s PIF and Mohamed Alabbar, the founder of Emaar Properties—holds a 66.03% stake in Americana Restaurants. The company is dual-listed on ADX and the Saudi Exchange.

Sales: $1.5 billion Profits: $148 million

• CEO: Mohamed Abdalla

Healthcare

Petrochemicals F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Americana Restaurants

Assets: $20.4 billion Established in 1967, ABK offers personal, corporate, and private banking services. It currently has 29 branches in Kuwait, 45 in Egypt, two branches in the U.A.E, and one offshore banking branch in DIFC. In December 2023, the bank issued $162.5 million subordinated tier 2 bonds. In September 2023, ABK increased its paid-up capital by 26.7% to reach $771.4 million. The Public Institution for Social Security owns an 11.68% stake in the bank, while the Kuwait Investment Authority holds 10.13%.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$41.2 billion

$7 billion

$823 million

$11.9 billion

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$26 billion

$7.8 billion

$1.4 billion

$14.8 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

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TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Sales: $1.8 billion

Khalid Bin Kalban 100

ADES Holding

• Vice Chairman and CEO: Mohamed Farouk Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Energy Market value: $5.9 billion Sales: $1.2 billion Profits: $121 million

The ADES Holding Company was established in 2022 as a Saudi company owned by ADES Investments Holding, Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, and Zamil Investment. In October 2023, the company offered 30% of its issued share capital in a $1.2 billion IPO on the Saudi Exchange. The IPO drew in orders worth $76.5 billion from local, regional, and international investors. The oil and gas drilling company owns a fleet of 87 rigs across nine countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Methodology

Qatar Insurance Company (QIC Group) 98

• Group CEO: Salem Al Mannai

Dubai Investments

• Vice Chairman and CEO: Khalid Bin Kalban Country: U.A.E. Sector: Investments

Country: Qatar Sector: Insurance

Market value: $2.5 billion

Market value: $2 billion

Sales: $1.1 billion Profits: $286 million

Sales: $2 billion Profits: $169 million

Assets: $5.8 billion

Assets: $7.9 billion Founded in 1964, the QIC Group was the first domestic insurance company in Qatar. Today, it operates in 11 countries. The group reported a net profit of $169 million in 2023, after recording a net loss of $325 million in 2022. It owns many subsidiaries, including Antares (Lloyd’s of London) and the Oman Qatar Insurance Company (OQIC). General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority is the major shareholder, with a 10.71% stake as of May 2024.

Technology IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Aviation F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Established in 1995, Dubai Investments has operations in real estate, industrial, financial, healthcare, education, and others. In April 2024, the company broke ground for residential and hotel towers in Danah Bay on Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah, a $272.3 million project spanning an area of about 90,000 square meters with 40,000 square meters of beaches and 189 villas. In January 2024, the company invested an equity stake of 34.3% in Global Fertility Partners.

We collected data from listed stock exchanges in the Arab world and ranked companies based on their reported sales, assets, and profits for the financial year of 2023 and market value as of April 26, 2024. Each metric was given equal weight, and companies with the same final scores were given the same rank. We excluded companies that hadn’t disclosed their 2023 full-year audited financial statements as of April 26, 2024. Currency exchange rates were taken as of April 26, 2024.

Stay connected with our latest business news.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$30.4 billion

$4.5 billion

$680 million

$5.2 billion

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$3.4 billion

$1.6 billion

$421 million

$4 billion

New

Returnees

JUNE 2024

TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $5.2 billion

• TOP 100 LISTED COMPANIES 2024 •

AZIZ ALUTHMAN FAKHROO

EVOLVING TOGETHER Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of the Ooredoo Group, has been leading a new strategy for the Qatar-headquartered telecom since taking the helm in November 2020. Now, he’s cornering key areas for future growth, including telecom towers, data centers, and fintech.

BY HAGAR OMRAN F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of the Ooredoo Group.

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

AZIZ ALUTHMAN FAKHROO

The small but mighty peninsula country of Qatar has been making big moves recently to accelerate its digital transformation. In February 2024, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology launched Qatar’s Digital Agenda 2030, which aims to transform the economy with 32 programs, helping deliver a compound annual GDP growth of 7.8% and increasing the ICT sector’s contribution to non-oil GDP to 3.5%. Then, at the Qatar Economic Forum in May 2024, it announced that it is allocating a $2.5 billion investment package to support technology, innovation, and artificial intelligence. State-owned telecom operator, Ooredoo Group, is one of the country’s biggest companies aligning itself with this strategy by making moves to evolve into a digital infrastructure company. As its clients and customers increasingly rely on cloud technologies and AI, the Ooredoo Group is keen to seize an opportunity. While the telecom industry has evolved in recent years, SMS revenue—a traditional income source for telecom companies—has seen a significant decline due to messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. In contrast, data usage is booming, with customers consuming 20-30% more data annually, according to Ooredoo. “Telecom companies face a challenge as data usage is rising, but revenue isn’t keeping pace,” says Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of the Ooredoo Group. “As part of our strategy, we are focusing on a strict investment discipline while also exploring ways to improve monetization. We’re wellpositioned to withstand the changes in the industry and step ahead of the latest trends.” The Qatar Investment Authority holds a more than 53% stake in Ooredoo Group, whose market cap hit $8.7 billion on May 14, 2024. As of April 2024, the group operated in ten markets—Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine, Myanmar, the Maldives, and Indonesia—serving a combined customer base of 160 million customers and employing more than 12,000 people across the world. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

The 37-year Ooredoo Group is now consolidating its telecom towers and investing in data centers to boost income. The group already has 23 active data centers across the region, including in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, and Tunisia, and it plans to invest another $1 billion in this field over the medium to long term in response to high demand from hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, as well as enterprises. In July 2023, Ooredoo Group and Zain initiated talks to merge their telecom towers in six MENA countries—Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, and Jordan—with U.A.E.-based TASC Towers Holding. The final agreements were signed in December 2023, creating the region’s largest tower company, with up to 30,000 towers and an enterprise value of $2.2 billion. This company will accelerate the digitalization of the countries it serves through the sharing of the passive infrastructure. This deal marks a significant change for telecom operators. Traditionally, companies build and maintain their own towers, leading to ongoing costs. The new, independent tower company flips this model. By renting out towers and equipment to any operator, it generates revenue instead of just consuming it.

“By challenging the status quo and engaging with our peers, we can foster our growth and enhance the quality of our services.” Qatar’s total telecom revenue dropped by 6.7% in Q3 2023 compared to Q3 2022, according to the Communications Regulatory Authority’s quarterly report, but the Ooredoo Group’s revenue increased slightly by 1.1% during the same period. It has also seen its quarterly net profit rocket by 271% since Fakhroo took the helm in 2020, up from $79 million in Q1 2021 to about $293 million in Q1 2024. As it consolidated, the group’s total assets declined by over 29% during the same period to nearly $15.6 billion by the end of Q1 2024. “We have dry powder, and we’ve been extremely disciplined on how to spend it,” emphasizes Fakhroo, whose proven track record made him a perfect fit to lead the group. Fakhroo worked at the Qatar Investment Authority from 2007 to 2014 and among other milestones oversaw $70 billion in total transactions as director of mergers and acquisitions at the critical time of the financial crisis. He began sitting on the board of JUNE 2024

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Ooredoo financial services are also present in the Maldives. “Ooredoo Group’s biggest asset is our customers. They trust us, and we provide them with a lot of services, in addition to mobile financial services,” says Fakhroo. Using Ooredoo Money’s app, Ooredoo Group’s customers can use their prepaid credit for money transfers and in-store purchases, leveraging existing infrastructure. In recent years, Ooredoo Money has undergone a major overhaul, transforming from a basic service to a versatile platform, enabling international remittances, salary disbursement, peer-to-peer transactions, merchant payments, and debit card issuance. The group has expanded its offerings beyond money transfers to make the platform a

The Qatar Investment Authority holds a more than 53% stake in Ooredoo Group, whose market cap hit $8.7 billion on May 14, 2024.

key player in Qatar’s remittance market, obtaining a 10-15 % monthly share as of Q1 2024, according to Fakhroo, who emphasizes that Ooredoo Money is not a bank competitor. The CEO explains that he sees Ooredoo Money as an “Uber” for financial services, connecting customers with financial solutions, including exchange houses, MoneyGram, and wallet-to-wallet solutions. In the future, it plans to leverage evolving regulations to introduce services like microlending and insurance. “We shifted our focus from technology to a customer-centric approach. This means prioritizing the best possible network experience, backed by the most advanced technology. All that customers want is a seamless and consistent experience,” he adds. JUNE 2024

57 AZIZ ALUTHMAN FAKHROO

Ooredoo in 2011, where he gained a deeper understanding of the group’s trajectory, while also holding several positions at the Ministry of Finance from 2014 to 2020, including Director of Public Investment Management and advisor to the minister. In November 2020, he became the Group CEO of Ooredoo. Bringing the group’s new strategy to life has included assessing and refreshing its portfolio. This included the $6 billion merger of Indosat Ooredoo and H3I in January 2022 to create Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, which helped Ooredoo’s business in Indonesia grow its subscriber base from 60 million before the deal to over 100 million as of March 2024. In September 2022, Ooredoo Group divested its Myanmar telecom business to Nine Communications Pte. Ltd for $576 million. Yet, the deal is still pending governmental and regulatory approvals. “In a quest for new growth paths, GCC telcos are shifting focus to non-telecom revenue streams—including fintech, cyber, cloud, IoT, ICT, and many other tech businesses—that we expect to grow at double-digit rates, boosting their cash flows thanks to lower investment needs,” says Tatjana Lescova, Associate Director at S&P Global. “GCC telcos operate in a relatively favorable regulatory framework in their respective markets, allowing them to generate higher margins than similar-scale peers globally. However, GCC telecom markets boast high mobile penetration rates of 130%-210%, thereby offering limited growth prospects in core mobile services.” The Ooredoo Group’s fintech platform, Ooredoo Money, was established in Qatar in 2010. The platform—operating in Qatar only—accounts for 11% market share in global mobile money remittances. It recorded $6.4 billion in transactions in 2023 in Qatar alone. In May 2024, the Central Bank of Oman awarded Ooredoo Group the license to operate its mobile fintech proposition in Oman through “walletii by Ooredoo”. The group plans to expand into new markets and become licensed in Iraq and Kuwait in 2024.

AZIZ ALUTHMAN FAKHROO

Looking ahead, and MENA’s stringent regulations – which dictate that data services must be hosted locally – means major cloud services providers like Microsoft, Amazon AWS, and Google, need to establish local instances in each country they aim to operate in, which will continue to create more growth opportunities in the region’s telecom industry. The Ooredoo Group plans on using its data center capacity to simplify this process while building long-term partnerships with industry stakeholders. For example, in March 2024, the Ooredoo Group and e& partnered to deploy the Gulf Gateway Cable (GGC1) system, utilizing subsea technology. This collaboration enhances international connectivity, reduces latency, and improves reliability between data centers in Abu Dhabi and Doha. Then, in April 2024, the Ooredoo Group signed an MoU with Nokia to upgrade business connectivity with the latest 5G solutions optimized for enterprises, helping organizations within emerging markets supercharge their digital transformation journey. To remain competitive, the Ooredoo Group prioritizes strict data privacy measures, mandating local storage of customer information and investing in the protection of customer data, according to the Group CEO. And while it looks to protect its customers from cyber risks, it also undertakes a

variety of CSR programs to ensure it’s also protecting the environment. For example, in areas with limited electricity access in Iraq, it might install generators for its equipment but also leverage that power to provide electricity to nearby homes and businesses. In May 2024, the group agreed on a three-year ESG partnership with the Qatar Foundation to advance ESG goals in Qatar and the wider region. “We are committed to supporting Qatar’s sustainability ambitions, and partnering with Ooredoo enables us to leverage the collective resources and expertise, helping us launch collaborative initiatives that secure a sustainable legacy for future generations,” says Machaille Al Naimi, Executive Officer of the Vice Chairperson and CEO Office of Qatar Foundation. “We aim to drive tangible, positive change, setting an example for impactful collaborations rooted in our shared social responsibility.” Despite the challenges, the Ooredoo Group CEO is keen to highlight the opportunities ahead, stressing that giving back and growing business can work hand in hand as the industry evolves. “We are a major telecom player and take responsibility for giving back to the communities we serve,” says Fakhroo. “By challenging the status quo and engaging with our peers, we can foster our growth and enhance the quality of our services.”

QIA’s Top 10 Holdings On Qatar Stock Exchange The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) held shares in 18 Qatari companies worth a total of $31.3 billion as of May 15, 2024, with Ooredoo Group being its second-largest holding. Rank

Company

QIA’s Share Value

QIA’s Share %

Market Cap

QNB Group

$18.1 billion

51.8%

$35 billion

Ooredoo Group

$4.6 billion

53.3%

$8.7 billion

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB)

$1.9 billion

16.9%

$11.4 billion

Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWC)

$1.4 billion

30.5%

$4.5 billion

Masraf Al Rayan

$1.3 billion

20.6%

$6.2 billion

Ahlibank

$1.2 billion

47.7%

$2.6 billion

Commercial Bank

$749.1 million

16.4%

$4.6 billion

Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB)

$698.9 million

16.6%

$4.2 billion

Dukhan Bank

$380 million

$5.5 billion

Doha Bank

$210.3 million

17.2%

$1.2 billion

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

Ignazio Cipriani, President of Mr. C Hotels & Residences

Luxury Living Meets A Four-Generation Legacy

Ignazio Cipriani, President of Mr. C Hotels & Residences, explains what distinguishes the exclusive residential development from the competition on Dubai’s ultra-luxury landscape.

n 1931, Giuseppe Cipriani opened Harry’s Bar on a tiny street off the world-famous Piazza San Marco in Venice. Over time, the intimate venue became an iconic destination for sophisticated clientele including royalty and global celebrities. More than 90 years on, brothers Maggio and Ignazio Cipriani are building on their rich family legacy with Mr. C Residences, a luxury hospitality and residential brand for glamorous modern living. Located on the banks of Dubai Canal within easy reach of Downtown Dubai and the beachfront neighborhood of Jumeirah, the exclusive development offers pared back luxury and unparalleled service, with attention to detail that is unmistakably reminiscent of their familial heritage. In Dubai, exclusivity and ultra-luxury are nothing new, but Mr. C Residences brings to the market something rare – even unique. In a city renowned for

superlative structures, the elegant development is deliberately smaller and more intimate. “At Mr. C Residences, our goal was to provide an exclusive living experience, different from the typical bustling landscape of Dubai,” explains Ignazio Cipriani, President, Mr. C Hotels & Residences. “We believe in offering residents a more intimate environment that fosters a sense of community and personal connection.” According to the president, by deliberately choosing a smaller scale, the complex developed by Alta offers a warm and welcoming environment where residents can truly feel at home. The personal touch extends beyond a warm welcome and home-from-home feel. “Honoring the approach to service that began in our great-grandfather’s single, thoughtfully conceived bar in Venice, we have made personalized attention offered with genuine care an integral part of Mr. C’s

The expressed inOthis F O Rthoughts BESMIDD L E E A S T.C M advertorial are those of the client.

DNA,” insists the president of Mr. C Residences. “From our dedicated hospitality team who anticipate every desire to our curated amenities that cater to every aspect of modern living, our goal is to provide an environment of real luxury and comfort,” says the fourthgeneration Cipriani. At every touchpoint, Mr. C Residences is marked by timeless elegance, sophisticated charm, and the level of hospitality the family is known for. Ignazio Cipriani recalls the words of his grandfather, Arrigo, “To serve is first to love,” he says, “and we credit our success to doing simple things, perfectly.”

www.mrcresidencesjumeirah.com JUNE 2024

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES 2024

gypt’s economy went through a tough time in 2023, pushing the local currency to lose over 35.5% of its value between April 2023 and 2024. Consequently, the top 50 listed companies in our annual list saw their sales in USD shrink by almost 20% to $26.4 billion in 2023 compared to 2022, with their total net profits dropping by 9% to $4.5 billion. Total assets also decreased by 18.1% to $89.4 billion in 2023, down from $109.2 billion in 2022. The total market cap of the 50 companies reached $29.4 billion as of April 26, 2024, a 3.3% decrease compared to a year earlier. However, excluding the foreign exchange effect, all financial metrics grew in local currency. Their aggregate market cap, sales, profits, and assets increased in EGP by 49.8%, 25%, 41%, and 27%, respectively. The Commercial International Bank tops the list with a market cap of $4.7 billion and $17.4 billion in assets, followed by QNB ALAHLI and Elsewedy Electric. Real estate moguls Orascom Construction and Talaat Moustafa Group Holding are among the top 10, ranking fifth and sixth, respectively. Banking and financial services dominate with 16 entries, having generated $8.4 billion in sales and $58.5 billion in total assets. Real estate and construction and industrials follow with nine and seven entries, respectively. Methodology We collected data from the Egyptian Exchange and ranked companies based on their reported sales, assets, and profits for the financial year of 2023 and market value as of April 26, 2024. Each metric was given equal weight, and companies with the same final scores were given the same rank. We excluded companies that hadn’t disclosed their 2023 full-year audited financial statements as of April 26, 2024. Currency exchange rates were taken as of April 26, 2024.

Year

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

2024

$29.4 billion

$26.4 billion

$4.5 billion

$89.4 billion

2023

$30.4 billion

$32.7 billion

$4.9 billion

$109.2 billion

2022

$28.5 billion

$39.1 billion

$5.4 billion

$142.2 billion

To nominate yourself or someone else for our lists, email: info@forbesmiddleeast.com

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

EGYPT’S

TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES 2024 Commercial International Bank (CIB) 1

• CEO and Managing Director: Hussein Abaza Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $4.7 billion Sales: $2.5 billion Profits: $619 million Assets: $17.4 billion CIB was established in 1975 as a joint venture between Chase Manhattan Bank and the National Bank of Egypt. In 2023, it had 193 branches and 15 units. The bank has a customer base exceeding 2.1 million. CIB also has a presence in Africa through its subsidiaries, including Mayfair-CIB Bank in Kenya, where the bank acquired its remaining 49% stake for $40 million in January 2023 and rebranded it to CIB Kenya Limited. Alpha Oryx Limited—a subsidiary of the U.A.E.’s ADQ—owns an 18.37% stake in the bank. CIB’s net profits jumped by 83.5% in 2023 to $619 million.

Mohamed Nasr

Elsewedy Electric

Telecom Egypt

• Group President and CEO:

• Managing Director and CEO:

Ahmed Elsewedy

Mohamed Nasr

Sector: Industrials

Sector: Telecommunications

Market value: $1.4 billion

Market value: $1.1 billion

Sales: $3.2 billion Profits: $232 million

Sales: $1.2 billion Profits: $239 million

• CEO: Mohamed Bedeir

Assets: $3.2 billion

Assets: $3.1 billion

Sector: Banking and financial services

Established in 1938 by the Elsewedy family, Elsewedy Electric operates in key business lines, including wires and cables, electrical products, engineering and construction, digital solutions, and infrastructure investments, with more than 19,000 people working across 31 production facilities in 15 countries. In November 2023, Elsewedy Cables KSA signed a $320 million agreement with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu to establish a new special cables factory and copper rod factory in Yanbu Industrial City.

Founded in 1854, Telecom Egypt was the first telecom operator in Egypt, providing fixed and mobile voice and data services. In 2017, it rebranded its retail business to WE with the launch of mobile services. The company had 12.5 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, 9.5 million fixed-internet customers, and 12.4 million mobile subscribers as of December 2023. In January 2024, The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority granted Telecom Egypt the country’s first license to install and operate 5G networks for mobile phones for $150 million. The company also owns a 45% stake in Vodafone Egypt.

QNB ALAHLI

Market value: $1.4 billion Sales: $1.8 billion Profits: $338 million Assets: $13.1 billion In 2013, the QNB Group acquired a majority stake in Egypt’s NSGB Bank and changed its name to QNB ALAHLI. Today, it provides services to 1.8 million customers through a network of 234 branches, 925 ATMs, and 43,400 POS. In February 2023, QNB ALAHLI launched its digital banking platform, QNB Bebasata.

Banking and financial services F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$10.8 billion

$8.4 billion

$1.8 billion

$58.5 billion JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Orascom Construction

• CEO: Osama Bishai Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $543 million Sales: $3.4 billion Profits: $195 million

Assets: $3.7 billion

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Orascom Construction was established in 1950 by the late billionaire Onsi Sawiris. In 2023, the company signed new awards worth $5.8 billion, of which $3.8 billion were in Egypt and the U.A.E. In November 2023, the company signed two contracts with Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels to build two major transportation projects in Egypt. In September 2023, the Orascom Construction consortium with Colas Rail signed a contract with the National Authority for Tunnels to build a new regional metro system in Alexandria for $1.4 billion. The group is dual-listed on Nasdaq Dubai and the Egyptian Exchange.

Talaat Moustafa Group Holding (TMG Holding) 6

• CEO and Managing Director: Hisham Talaat Moustafa Sector: Real Estate & Construction

Osama Bishai

Market value: $2.4 billion Sales: $593 million Profits: $70 million

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Assets: $4.2 billion TMG Holding is one of the largest real estate developers in Egypt, with a land bank of 84 million square meters in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In February 2024, TMG Holding reached an agreement with ADQ and Modon Properties to collaborate on the development of the Ras El-Hekma area. In the same month, its hospitality arm, the ICON Group completed the acquisition of a 51% stake with management rights in the Legacy Hospitality Company worth $800 million, representing a portfolio of seven distinctive hotels across Egypt. In May 2024, the group announced that it had achieved contractual real estate sales and reservations of more than $2.1 billion representing 9,303 units, since the start of 2024, including 1,706 units of sales in the new Saudi sustainable city “Benan” for over $505 million in seven working days from its soft launch.

Real Estate & Construction F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt (FIBE)

• CEO: Jon Rokk

• Governor: Abdel Hamid Aboumoussa

Sector: Investments

Sector: Banking and financial services

Market value: $959 million

Market value: $518 million

Sales: $801 million Profits: $218 million

Sales: $487 million Profits: $94 million

Assets: $1.7 billion

Assets: $3.8 billion

EKH is an investment company operating across five main sectors: fertilizers, petrochemicals, gas distribution and power generation and distribution, upstream gas, and insurance and non-banking financial services. In October 2023, the company signed a binding agreement with a Kuwaiti company and its affiliated fund to purchase its share of 9.45% in Bawabet Al Kuwait Holding Company for $47.5 million, bringing its total shareholding in the company to 94.34%.

FIBE provides retail and corporate banking services and investment activities through over 41 branches across Egypt. The bank manages over two million customer accounts. It has eight subsidiaries and seven associates, including Ismailia National Company for Food Industries (FOODICO) and Misr International Hospital. The Al Awqaf Egyptian Authority is the largest shareholder in the bank, with 15.35%.

Egypt Kuwait Holding (EKH)

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$4.7 billion

$5.8 billion

$753 million

$14.5 billion JUNE 2024

Karim Awad ammonia product. In November 2023, MOPCO approved its merger with the Egyptian Nitrogen Products Company on a book value basis. The Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company owns a 31.47% stake in MOPCO, while the Saudi Egyptian Investment Company holds a 25.56% stake.

64 EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

EFG Holding

• Group CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee: Karim Awad Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $494 million Sales: $506 million Profits: $66 million Assets: $2.5 billion EFG Holding is one of the largest financial institutions in MENA. It operates in 12 countries across three divisions: the investment bank (EFG Hermes), nonbank financial institutions (EFG Finance), and the commercial bank (aiBANK). The company had regional AUMs of over $5.2 billion in 2023, with its investment bank division concluding 28 transactions worth $7.6 billion, including the $2.5 billion IPO of ADNOC Gas on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the $1.2 billion IPO of the ADES Holding Company on the Saudi Exchange.

Housing & Development Bank (HDB) 11

base to 61 clients. The company’s net profits grew by 61.7% in 2023 to $305 million.

Sector: Industrials

Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MOPCO)

Market value: $1.7 billion

• Chairman and Managing Director:

Sales: $450 million Profits: $305 million

Ahmed Mahmoud El-Sayed

Assets: $739 million

Sector: Industrials

AFC produces and markets nitrogen fertilizers, chemical products, and other related materials in Egypt and abroad. As of the fiscal year that ended June 2023, the company’s total production reached 2.2 million tons, and it exported to 40 clients across 31 markets. In addition, it expanded its local free market consumer

Market value: $2.1 billion

• Chairman and Managing Director: Abed Ezz El-Regal

Industrials F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Sales: $383 million Profits: $199 million Assets: $1.1 billion Established in 1998, MOPCO is the largest nitrogen fertilizer plant in Egypt. In 2023, it produced 1.99 million tons of urea product and 1.22 million tons of

• Executive Chairman and Managing Director: Hassan Ghanem Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $487 million Sales: $421 million Profits: $137 million Assets: $2.7 billion HDB was established in 1979 with a focus on housing and urban development before transforming into a full-fledged commercial bank with 100 branches and over 440 ATMs across Egypt as of January 2024. The bank’s net profit grew by 140.6% in 2023 to hit $137 million. As of September 2023, the bank had 14 subsidiaries, including El-Tameer Company for Real Estate Development and Investment, and El-Tameer Company for Financial and Real Estate Investment Banking.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$6.5 billion

$5.3 billion

$910 million

$6.3 billion JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Abu Qir Fertilizers and Chemical Industries Company (AFC) 9

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB-Egypt) 13

• CEO and Managing Director: Mohamed Aly Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $370 million

Sales: $456 million Profits: $97 million EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $3.4 billion ADIB Egypt was created in 2007 when ADIB and the Emirates International Investment Company acquired the National Bank for Development. It provides Shariahcompliant financial services across 70 branches. The bank’s net profits grew by 113.4% in 2023 to $97 million.

Eastern Company

• CEO and Managing Director: Hany Aman Sector: Retail Market value: $1.2 billion Sales: $375 million Profits: $160 million Assets: $549 million Established in 1920, the Eastern Company is the only local manufacturer of cigarettes in Egypt. In September 2023, the U.A.E’s Global Investment Holding Company acquired 30% of the total shares of the Eastern Company for $625 million, and it will arrange $150 million to purchase tobacco materials for manufacturing. In May 2024, Philip Morris Products acquired 49% of the parent company of the Global Investment Holding Company. Philip Morris now owns an indirect minority stake of 14.7% in Eastern Company. The Holding Company for Chemical Industries will retain a 20.9% stake in the capital of Eastern Company. The company’s net profit grew by 90% in 2023 to $160 million.

Crédit Agricole Egypt (CAE) 15

• Managing Director: Jean-Pierre Trinelle Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $488 million Sales: $305 million Profits: $108 million

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

Assets: $2.2 billion CAE provides corporate, retail, and investment banking services. It serves over

Food and Beverages F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Jean-Pierre Trinelle 438,000 customers through a network of 83 branches and more than 2,589 people. In May 2024, the bank signed an MoU with the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) to support GAFI’s strategy to attract foreign direct investments to Egypt.

3,000 hotel rooms on Egypt’s North Coast, including the previously launched hotels and those still under construction.

Export Development Bank of Egypt (EBank) 17

• Chairman: Ahmed Galal

Emaar Misr

Sector: Banking and financial services

• CEO: Mostafa El Kady

Market value: $334 million

Sector: Real Estate & Construction

Sales: $339 million Profits: $71 million

Market value: $460 million

Assets: $2.5 billion

Sales: $315 million Profits: $142 million

EBank was established in 1983 to boost Egyptian exports in sectors such as agriculture, industrials, and commerce. It also provides banking services through 45 branches and employs over 1,675 people across Egypt. In February 2024, EBank received a loan of up to $25 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support Egypt’s small and medium-sized exporting enterprises. The bank’s net profits grew by 154% in 2023 to $71 million.

Assets: $1.8 billion Emaar Misr plans and constructs urban areas in Egypt. It is affiliated with Emaar Properties, which owns an 86.97% stake. In August 2023, Emaar Misr inaugurated its hotel and resort “the Address Beach Resort Marassi” in Egypt with an investment of over $160 million. The company aims to develop a portfolio of 10 hotels, representing approximately

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$940 million

$982 million

$110 million

$545 million JUNE 2024

years to develop New Heliopolis City. In 2023, the company’s revenue grew by 681% to hit $326 million. The company is affiliated with the Holding Company for Construction & Development with a 72.25% stake, which is affiliated with Egypt’s Ministry of Public Business Sector.

Orascom Development Egypt (ODE) 21

• Group CEO: Omar El Hamamsy Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $245 million Sales: $320 million Profits: $65 million Assets: $818 million

Yasseen Mansour

Misr Aluminum Company (Egyptalum) 18

• Executive Managing Director: Mahmoud Agour Sector: Industrials Market value: $818 million Sales: $460 million Profits: $77 million Assets: $372 million Egyptalum was established in 1969 as the only manufacturer of primary aluminum in Egypt. Today, it is one of the largest aluminum companies in North Africa, with a total annual production of 320,000 tons. In February 2024, the company signed a cooperation agreement with the Norwegian company (Scatec ASA) to establish a solar power plant with a capacity of 1 GW to produce electricity at Naga Hammadi.

main entities: GB Auto, which operates the core automotive business across Egypt and Iraq, and GB Capital, which oversees the operations of the group’s non-bank financial service providers. In June 2023, GB Corp launched Kredit, a new SME lending company in Egypt. It had disbursed approximately $5 million in Q4 2023. In April 2024, the company launched a joint venture to manage the MG Motor dealership in Jordan. In May 2024, the group became the exclusive distributorship of the Jac & Foton Motors brands in Iraq through its GQ subsidiary.

Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development 20

• Managing Director and CEO: Sameh Elsayed Sector: Real Estate & Construction

GB Corp

Market value: $259 million Sales: $326 million Profits: $163 million

• CEO: Nader Ghabbour

Assets: $330 million

Sector: Diversified Market value: $222 million Sales: $591 million Profits: $38 million Assets: $888 million GB Corp provides its services through two

Petrochemicals F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Heliopolis Company For Housing & Development has specialized in masterplanned communities in Egypt since its inception in 1906. In February 2024, the company announced its intention to invest around $83.4 million over the next five

ODE, the largest subsidiary of Orascom Development Holding, has a land bank of more than 50.25 million square meters with nearly 28% developed or under development. It also has 24 hotels with over 4,934 rooms in Egypt. ODE’s flagship project is El Gouna in Egypt, and it has integrated towns in Egypt including O West in Cairo, Makadi Heights near the Red Sea, Taba Heights on the Sinai Peninsula, and Byoum in Fayoum. In Q1 2024, new real estate sales increased by 218.3% to $183.5 million with El Gouna accounting for 47% of the new sales, followed by O West at 39% and Makadi Heights at 14%.

Palm Hills Developments (PHD) 22

• Chairman and Group CEO: Yasseen Mansour Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $210 million Sales: $364 million Profits: $33 million Assets: $1.5 billion PHD has a land bank of over 30.6 million square meters, in West Cairo, East Cairo, Alexandria, and North Coast. In 2023, PHD delivered more than 15,000 units within its developments. In December 2023, Marriott International signed an agreement with PHD to open The Ritz-Carlton Cairo, which will open in 2027. Al Mansour & Al Maghrabi for Investments and Development is the major shareholder in PHD, with a 41.19% stake. Yasseen Mansour, Chairman and Group CEO of PHD, had a net worth of $1.2 billion as of May 2024, according to Forbes.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$838 million

$918 million

$104 million

$755 million JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

a $50 million Murabaha finance agreement with IFC to finance and support small and medium-sized enterprises in Egypt.

Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals Company (SIDPEC) 25

Ibrahim Sector: Petrochemicals Market value: $464 million Sales: $275 million Profits: $51 million Assets: $225 million SIDPEC produces ethylene, polyethylene, Butene-1, Naphtha, and LPG. The company has 12 distributors in Egypt, as well as international distributors in the U.A.E., the U.S., France, the U.K., Austria, China, and Germany, among other countries. In November 2023, SIDPEC signed a partnership agreement with the Nigerian company Ran Gas to establish a factory in Egypt to produce LPG cylinders with an annual production capacity of one million cylinders. The Government Sector Employees Trust Fund in Egypt is the main shareholder of SIDPEC, with a 20.75% stake as of March 2024.

Ramadan area using solar energy to reduce carbon emissions by 2,300 tons annually.

Oriental Weavers

• Chairwoman: Yasmine Khamis 24

Market value: $277 million

• CEO and Vice Chairman: Hazem

Sales: $368 million Profits: $39 million Assets: $482 million

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Al Baraka Bank Egypt

Sector: Industrials

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Hegazy Sector: Banking and financial services

Founded by the late Mohamed Farid Khamis in 1979, the Oriental Weavers group is one of the world’s largest carpet and rug manufacturers. The group has manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Egypt and exports its products to more than 130 countries. In 2023, export revenue increased by 34% year-on-year supported by local currency devaluation, while local sales increased by 31% year-on-year. In November 2023, the group signed an agreement with Amarenco Solarize to operate one of its factories in the Tenth of

Investments

Société Arabe Internationale de Banque (saib) 26

Yasmine Khamis

Market value: $173 million Sales: $268 million Profits: $46 million Assets: $2.1 billion Al Baraka Bank has been operating in Egypt for over 44 years, with a network of 36 branches and 1,282 people. The Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group is the major shareholder of Al Baraka Bank Egypt, with a 73.68% stake. In 2023, the bank’s net profit grew by 26.8% to $46 million. In December 2023, the bank signed

• CEO: Afdal Naguib Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $70 million Sales: $437 million Profits: $31 million Assets: $3.5 billion saib offers conventional and Shariahcompliant banking services. It also has several mutual funds, including the saib Fund 2, El Rabeh Fund, Youmy Fund, and the Sanabel Islamic Fund. As of March 2024, the bank had 42 branches and employed over 1,783 people. The Arab International Bank is the major shareholder with a 51% stake, while the Arab Contractors for Investments Company holds 17.3%, and the Misr Insurance Company owns 11.3% as of March 2024.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$1.1 billion

$1.5 billion

$230 million

$2.3 billion JUNE 2024

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

• Chairman and CEO: Mohamed

Suez Canal Bank

• CEO and Managing Director: Akef El Maghraby Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $135 million Sales: $267 million Profits: $48 million Assets: $2.1 billion Established in 1978, Suez Canal Bank provides retail, corporate, and investment banking services through 50 branches across Egypt. In 2023, the bank signed a cooperation protocol with the Chinese company TEDA to support investment capabilities in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. In January 2024, the bank signed a partnership agreement with Allianz Egypt to expand bancassurance services. The Arab International Bank owned 41.5% of the bank, the Libyan Foreign Bank owned 27.7%, and the Suez Canal Authority (Pension Fund) owned 10% as of March 2024.

Egyptian Gulf Bank (EGBANK) 28

• Vice Chairman and CEO: Nidal Assar Sector: Banking and financial services Market value: $157 million Sales: $287 million Profits: $31 million Assets: $2 billion EGBANK was founded in 1981 to support developmental projects in Egypt and the Arab countries. The bank has two subsidiaries under its umbrella: the Egyptian Gulf Holding Company for Financial Investments and the Egyptian Gulf Company for Financial Consultations. It had 61 branches and employed 2,172 people as of December 2023.

Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (SODIC) 28

Ayman Amer Established in 1996, SODIC is a mixeduse developer with a land bank of more than 17 million square meters across three geographies in Egypt, delivering more than 13,000 units from its establishment to September 2023. In May 2023, SODIC acquired 180 acres south of the Caesar Island. In July 2023, it signed a revenue share deal to develop 440 acres on the North Coast. In March 2024, SODIC approved the sale of 100% of its subsidiary, SODIC Securitization, to Belton Financial Holdings Company. Aldar Properties and ADQ own 85.52% of SODIC as of March 2024.

The company handled about 831,283 TEUs in the fiscal year 2022/23. The Holding Company for Maritime and Land Transport is the largest shareholder with a 35.4% stake, followed by Alpha Oryx Limited—a subsidiary of ADQ— which owned a 32% stake in the company as of December 2023.

Alexandria Container & Cargo Handling Company

Market value: $173 million

• Executive Managing Director: Alaa Mohamed Ibrahim Sector: Shipping & Transportation Services Market value: $1.1 billion

• General Manager: Ayman Amer

Sales: $103 million Profits: $92 million

Sector: Real Estate & Construction

Assets: $172 million

Market value: $333 million

The company operates two main terminals: the Alexandria Terminal, with a capacity of 500,000 TEUs, and the El-Dekheilla Terminal, with a capacity of a million TEUs.

Sales: $215 million Profits: $29 million Assets: $807 million

Retail F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Raya Holding

• CEO and Managing Director: Ahmed Khalil Sector: Investments Sales: $653 million Profits: $12 million Assets: $566 million Raya Holding was founded in 1999 through the merger of seven national IT companies. It currently operates in different areas, including IT, consumer electronics and home appliances trading, data center outsourcing services, and smart buildings, among other sectors. In December 2023, the company signed an agreement to acquire a 27.69% stake in the Ostool for Land Transport Company, raising its stake to 90% of the company. In July 2023, it issued a securitization bond with a total value of $27.7 million. The investment conglomerate has 38 subsidiaries across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Bahrain, Poland, and Nigeria.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$1.3 billion

$591 million

$174 million

$641 million JUNE 2024

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EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Egyptian Satellite Company (Nilesat) 32

• Chairman and CEO: Sameh Katta Sector: Media Market value: $262 million

Sales: $102 million Profits: $44 million

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $661 million Nilesat was the first company in Egypt to operate and control satellites in geostationary orbit. It launched Nilesat-101, Nilesat-102, and Nilesat-201 between 1998 and 2010. In February 2024, the company signed a strategic partnership and a joint cooperation agreement with the Arab Satellite Communications Corporation (Arabsat), which includes cooperation in satellite television broadcasting and communications in the region.

Edita Food Industries

• Group Chairman: Hani Berzi Sector: Food and Beverages Market value: $424 million Sales: $253 million Profits: $31 million

Seif Thabet

Assets: $162 million Edita manufactures branded baked snack products, with over 3.99 billion packs sold in 2023. Its subsidiary Edita Trade and Distribution’s network included over 55,000 points of sale, 26 distribution centers, 1,065 fleets, and 900 sales representatives as of January 2024. In October 2023, Edita secured a $45 million loan from IFC to fuel expansion. In May 2023, the company signed an agreement to acquire 100% of Fancy Foods, marking its entry into the frozen bakery segment in Egypt.

Alexandria Mineral Oils Company (AMOC) 34

• Executive Deputy Chairman and CEO: Seif Thabet Sector: Food and Beverages

Sector: Petrochemicals

Sales: $336 million Profits: $21 million

Market value: $193 million

Assets: $179 million

Sales: $505 million Profits: $29 million

Established in 1983, Juhayna Food Industries manufactures, processes, and packages dairy, juice, and cooking products. Juhayna currently serves 62 markets worldwide, operates four factories, employs over 4,000 people, and manages a 550-acre dairy farm.

Pharmaceuticals F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Madinet Masr

• President and CEO: Abdallah Sallam Market value: $153 million

Market value: $273 million

AMOC is a second-stage refinery, operating two complexes in Alexandria, with a designed capacity of 1.35 million tons

It distributes over 200 products through 34 distribution centers that serve over 136,000 retail outlets across Egypt.

Sector: Real Estate & Construction

Juhayna Food Industries 35

• Chairman and CEO: Amr Lotfy

Assets: $139 million

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as of June 2023, producing LPG, naphtha, gasoil, fuel oil, lube base oils, and wax. The company’s revenue increased by 31.3% in 2023 to $505 million. It owns 86.45% of the Alexandria Wax Products Company and 5.2% of the Alexandria Specialty Petroleum Products Company.

Sales: $169 million Profits: $45 million Assets: $385 million Established in 1959, Madinet Masr is a real estate developer with a land bank of 9.6 million square meters. As of 2023, the company had 22 active projects across three main developments: Taj City, Sarai, and Zahw. In August 2023, Madinet Masr launched its new R&D arm, Madinet Masr Innovation Labs, introducing the Touba platform, which offers customers innovative solutions for purchasing and investing in real estate. In March 2023, the company rebranded from Madinet Nasr for Housing & Development to Madinet Masr.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$184 million

$817 million

$22 million

$595 million JUNE 2024

TAQA Arabia

• CEO: Pakinam Kafafi Sector: Utilities Market value: $299 million Sales: $281 million Profits: $13 million Assets: $362 million TAQA Arabia is a private sector group in energy distribution and its integrated services. It serves over 1.7 million customers across Egypt with natural gas, electricity, renewable energy, petroleum products, and water. In 2023, it added 14 new compressed natural gas fueling stations to its network, bringing the total number to 75 stations. In June 2023, the company was listed on the Egyptian Exchange with an issued capital of $21.8 million. The National Service Projects Organization owns a 20% stake in the group as of April 2024.

Egyptian Chemical Industries Company (Kima) 38

• Executive Managing Director:

Pakinam Kafafi

Abdel-Majeed Hegazy Sector: Petrochemicals Market value: $182 million Sales: $138 million Profits: $24 million Assets: $391 million Established in 1956, Kima produces chemical products such as urea fertilizer, liquid ammonia, high-density ammonium nitrate, and ferrosilicon. In June 2023, the company accepted an offer from the Italybased Technomont to implement a nitric acid and ammonium nitrate project with a total value of $297 million.

eFinance Investment Group (EFIG) 39

• Chairman and Managing Director:

Digital Operations, which processes the Egyptian government’s G2G, G2B, and G2C payments. In May 2024, the group acquired a 25% stake in Al Ahly Momken and a 13% stake in EasyCash for Digital Payments. The Saudi Egyptian Investment Company is the largest shareholder, with a 25.75% stake as of April 2024.

Gadwa For Industrial Development * 40

• CEO: Yasser Zaki

Sales: $255 million Profits: $30 million

Sector: Financial services

Established as a result of the horizontal split of Pioneers Holding Company in 2021, Gadwa is an industrial development and investment company. It operates across multiple sectors including Fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG), Paper and Packaging, Wires and Cables, and

Assets: $159 million EFIG’s flagship subsidiary is eFinance

Telecommunications F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

• CEO: Mohamed Mahmoud Ibrahim Sector: Industrials Sales: $181 million Profits: $26 million

Market value: $83 million Assets: $272 million

Sales: $81 million Profits: $26 million

Electro Cable Egypt (ECE) 41

Market value: $142 million

Sector: Industrials

Ibrahim Sarhan Market value: $841 million

Pharmaceuticals. Gadwa’s net profit surged by 311% in 2023 to hit $30 million. Its portfolio of companies includes Electro Cable Egypt, Arab Dairy (PANDA), and Universal Unipack, among others.

Assets: $186 million Established in 1954, Electro Cable Egypt is one of the largest diversified cable companies in Egypt. The company produces power and telecommunication cables for local and export markets. The company’s revenue increased by 52.2% in 2023 to $181 million. Gadwa Industrial Development is the major shareholder with a 25.3% stake as of April 2024.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$1.1 billion

$1.2 billion

$239 million

$3.1 billion JUNE 2024

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EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

CI Capital Holding

• Managing Director and Group CEO: Hesham Gohar Sector: Financial services Market value: $88 million Sales: $138 million Profits: $22 million

CI Capital is a diversified financial services group that provides leasing, microfinance, mortgage finance, and investment banking products and services, among others. It has a presence in Cairo, New York, and Dubai. In 2023, CI Capital Investment Banking advised on 14 transactions of more than $1.1 billion. Reefy Microfinance Enterprise Services expanded its network with an additional 30 new branches, reaching a total of 162 branches in Egypt.

Fawry

• Cofounder and CEO: Ashraf Sabry

Khaled Mahmoud

Sector: Financial services Market value: $433 million Sales: $68 million Profits: $17 million Assets: $187 million Fawry is a provider of e-payments and digital finance solutions. Its services include electronic bill payments, mobile top-ups and provisions, e-ticketing, and cable TV, among others. The company has ten subsidiaries in Egypt and the U.A.E. Through its network of 36 member banks, its mobile platform, and 356,000 agents, Fawry processes more than five million transactions per day, serving around 52.1 million users monthly as of March 2024. In 2023, it processed 1.6 billion transactions, an increase of 22.3% year-on-year.

the first production line was opened. The company employs over 2,760 people as of December 2023. It recorded an 86.4% increase in sales in 2023 compared to 2022 and generated 308,185 tons of sugar, an increase of 14.04%.

Delta Sugar Company

• Chairman and Managing Director:

Assets: $93 million

Ahmed Kelani

MTI operates various business lines, including consumer electronics, telecommunication, automotive, and tractors, through partnerships with global brands, including Samsung, Vodafone, Huawei, and Range Rover. In July 2023, MTI acquired 40% of “B Pharma Holding,” a company dedicated to investing in the pharmaceuticals distribution and trade services sector, with an investment of $6.6 million. In September 2023, the company announced that it was expanding to Saudi Arabia. In January 2024, it signed a distribution agreement with Tata Motors to be the official distributor for its commercial vehicles in Egypt.

Sales: $109 million Profits: $17 million Assets: $208 million

Sector: Food and Beverages

EIPICO was established in 1980. In 2023, its products accounted for 25% of Egyptian pharmaceutical exports, covering 78 countries worldwide. In 2023, it recorded total sales of $109 million, a growth of 32% compared to 2022. EIPICO is planning to open its EIPICO 3 factory in Q2 2024, which will be the first factory in Egypt and the Middle East to produce biosimilars

Sales: $146 million Profits: $33 million Assets: $94 million

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Market value: $130 million

Ahmed Abou El Yazied Market value: $176 million

Delta Sugar Company was established in 1979 as the first company to produce sugar from sugar beets in Egypt, and in 1981,

Diversified F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

MM Group for Industry and International Trade (MTI) 46

Egyptian International • CEO: Khaled Mahmoud Pharmaceutical Sector: Retail Industries Company Market value: $179 million Sales: $216 million Profits: $15 million (EIPICO) 45

Sector: Pharmaceuticals 44

and its preparations, at an investment of $100 million.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$222 million

$591 million

$38 million

$888 million JUNE 2024

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

Assets: $530 million

1,000 families, with expected contracted sales estimated at $938.6 million and an investment cost of approximately $458.8 million. The company’s total land portfolio reached more than 12 million square meters.

Ibnsina Pharma

Director: Mohsen Mahgoub Sector: Pharmaceuticals Market value: $54 million Sales: $708 million Profits: $4 million Assets: $387 million

Said Zater

Contact Financial Holding 47

• Group CEO and Managing Director: Said Zater Market value: $111 million Sales: $90 million Profits: $14 million Assets: $261 million Contact Financial Holding is a non-banking financial services provider operating since 2001. It has three main digital platforms: Contactcars.com with over one million monthly users; the ContactNow app, with 643,000 registered users; and the Wasla super app, which has been downloaded two million times as of March 2024. It has 74 branches across Egypt, 10,384 points of sales, and over 1,500 auto dealers. The company’s major shareholders include the

Utilities Shipping & Transportation Services F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Pioneers Properties for Urban Development (PREDCO) 47

Sector: Financial services

Media

Egyptian American Enterprise Fund and Orascom Financial Holding, with 42% and 29.3% stakes, respectively, as of March 2024.

• CEO and Managing Director: Walid Zaki Sector: Real Estate & Construction Market value: $61 million Sales: $121 million Profits: $12 million Assets: $908 million PREDCO is a real estate investment company in Egypt. In February 2024, it launched its “IVOIRE East” project, which is expected to accommodate more than

Established in 2001, Ibnsina Pharma distributes pharmaceutical products from over 350 Egyptian and multinational pharmaceutical companies to more than 50,000 customers, including pharmacies, hospitals, retail outlets, and wholesalers, using a fleet of around 830 vehicles and a team of more than 6,000 people. In 2023, it recorded a 52.5% increase in net sales compared to 2022, reaching $708 million, and a 24.8% increase in net profits, reaching $4 million.

Cairo Poultry Company (CPC) 50

• Managing Director: Adel Al Alfi Sector: Food and Beverages Market value: $67 million Sales: $246 million Profits: $24 million Assets: $109 million CPC is a vertically integrated poultry company that was founded in 1977. The company owns Koki, which manufactures processed chicken and provides product categories. The company is 53% owned by the Egyptian Holding Company for Poultry, formerly known as Americana Holding for Egypt Food, as of March 2024.

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$262 million

$102 million

$44 million

$661 million

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$299 million

$281 million

$13 million

$362 million

Companies

Total market value

Total sales

Total profits

Total assets

$1.1 billion

$103 million

$92 million

$172 million JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

• Vice Chairman and Managing

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

Pioneering Sustainable Agriculture Founded by Hatim Morbiwala and Murtaza Taskin, Growhub is disrupting the U.A.E.’s agriculture sector through technology, innovation, and a passion for plants.

for efficient farm design and management. It has also secured collaborations with local companies such as Arada Development and Barakah Holding.

Smart Strategies

Five smart strategies that cement Growhub’s reputation in the U.A.E.’s agriculture space include: 1. Debunking Agri-Myths: Growhub replaces hype with hard facts. The company changes agriculture misinformation into comprehensive insights. 2. Affordability Meets Eco-Friendly: Growhub brings eco-solutions to the table without the hefty price tag, proving that sustainability can be both accessible and affordable. 3. Beyond the Sale Support: Growhub offers comprehensive training to ensure clients are wellequipped to manage and maintain its state-of-the-art systems for the long haul. 4. Design That Works: The company does not just create spaces; it crafts experiences. Whether it is giving a schoolyard a breath of fresh air or

The expressed inOthis F O Rthoughts BESMIDD L E E A S T.C M advertorial are those of the client.

adding a dash of green to gourmet spaces, Growhub’s designs are a smart blend of aesthetics and utility. 5. Custom Tech for Every Crop: There are no generic solutions at Growhub. Its customized tech solutions ensure that every plant gets exactly what it needs to grow, thrive, and flourish. Growhub invites curious minds to its 2,000 square-meter showroom in Warsan, Dubai – a haven for plant enthusiasts and an experience center that demonstrates the intricacies of plant production technology. Looking ahead, Growhub is set to break new ground with the construction of a pioneering ornamental plant production facility. The 8,000 square-meter facility features 10 high-tech greenhouse spans, which are projected to produce over 150,000 potted plants per year. Notably, the facility is the first of its kind in the U.A.E. to localize the production of plants that are typically flown in from abroad. It will significantly reduce reliance on imported plants and reduce related carbon emissions. To date, Growhub has deployed, operated, and sold farms and their produce to companies and consumers throughout the U.A.E. Now its founders are ready for the next step, creating their own production facility to enhance Growhub’s offerings and directly control the quality of its products.

www.growhub.ae JUNE 2024

EGYPT’S TOP 50 LISTED COMPANIES

n the U.A.E.’s burgeoning landscape of sustainable agriculture, Growhub stands out as an innovator and a transformative force against desertification. The company’s etho–Grow, Create, Build–is not merely a slogan but a strategic roadmap guiding its endeavors to grow a diverse variety of plants, create beautiful landscapes, and build technologically sophisticated agricultural infrastructures. Since Hatim Morbiwala and Murtaza Taskin launched the company in 2022, Growhub has been an early adopter of agriculture technology in the U.A.E. Morbiwala, an alumnus of Imperial College London, and Taskin, a mechanical engineer who studied at the American University of Sharjah, have harnessed technologies previously untapped in the sector in order to spearhead innovation and capitalize on new areas of growth in agriculture. With over seven unique farm sites under its belt, Growhub has demonstrated its capacity

• FEATURES •

THAMER AL MUHID

CHARGED UP Thamer Al Muhid, Group CEO and Managing Director of Saudi Chemical Company Holding is leading a major restructuring as part of the firm’s strategic transformation strategy. With progress underway to boost production and localization, aligning with Vision 2030 is a top priority.

BY JAMILA GANDHI F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

Thamer Al Muhid, Group CEO and Managing Director of Saudi Chemical Company Holding.

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

THAMER AL MUHID

Amid growing demands for energy security and industrial self-sufficiency, the significance of resource control and manufacturing capabilities cannot be overstressed, particularly in the current global geopolitical climate. In the U.S.—one of the largest consumers of explosives for industrial applications— the industry contributes over $19 billion annually to its economy as per IME 2023 data. For a fast-growing explosive ammunition market like Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Chemical Company Holding (SCCH) has been central to the kingdom’s growth for 52 years. Established in 1972 and initially focused on explosives, SCCH expanded into the healthcare sector in 2000. By 2001, it was listed on Tadawul, and it has since developed into a conglomerate comprising six subsidiaries, five in Saudi and one in Egypt. In the explosives sector, SCCH has Saudi Chemical Company Ltd. (SCCL), which has been manufacturing and distributing explosives for civil and military uses since 1972, and the Suez International Nitrate Company (SINCO), an Egyptian joint-stock company established in 2006. In the healthcare sector, it has AJA Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (AJA Pharma), which leads pharmaceutical manufacturing and commercialization, while the Saudi International Trading Company Ltd. (SITCO Pharma), the Chemical Company for Commercial Investment Ltd. (CCCI), and Care Supply Chain for Logistic Services Co. Ltd. (CSC) handle distribution, marketing, and logistics services. SCCH’s market value stood at $2.08 billion as of May 2024. Thamer Al Muhid, Group CEO and Managing Director of SCCH, is now spearheading the restructuring of the company by creating two holding companies to manage the explosives and healthcare businesses. For any other firm, a reshuffling of this size could lead to potential operational disruptions, funding shortfalls, and even financial costs. However, F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

SCCH has proven to be an anomaly. The diversified Saudi joint stock investment company recorded a net profit of $24.4 million in Q1 2024, an increase of over two-fold from $8.6 million compared to the same period last year. In 2023, SCCH’s profits hit $48.7 million, a 128% increase from $21.3 million in 2022. “We’re currently in the second phase of SCCH’s transformation program, which involves a developmental approach, focusing on restructuring subsidiaries to enhance value and achieve strategic objectives,” says Al Muhid. “By establishing two separate holding companies—one dedicated to explosives and the other to healthcare—we will boost production, enhance localization at all levels, and advance key sectors to create a sustainable economy and support the non-oil sector in Saudi Arabia in line with the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030.” SCCH launched the first phase of its strategic transformation program in June 2020, marking its transition to a holding company.

“We are looking for more challenging projects and complementary partners in Saudi Arabia and beyond in the next few years.” Al Muhid insists that the transformation strategy has been highly effective so far, resulting in a more than fivefold increase in profits between 2019 and 2023. Specifically, the sale of explosives for civil use totaled $134.9 million in 2023, up 55.8% from $86.4 million in 2022. SITCO Pharma’s annual sales reached $1.12 billion in 2023, a 28.4% increase from $880 million in 2022, while AJA Pharma’s revenues surged 32.6% to $41.2 million from $31.1 million in 2022. The group CEO attributes the success to enhanced innovation, operational efficiency, and the development of new strategies, products, and services. “The company has achieved operational excellence through strategic developments, the establishment of experienced work teams, the implementation of new digital solutions, and the use of ERP system to manage resources and business operations,” he adds. The distinction between the two holding companies will also be beneficial for improving competitiveness and enhancing the attractiveness of Saudi markets to both public and private sector investments. In 2022, the global mining explosives market was valued at over $307 million and is estimated to touch over JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

In January 2024, Australian explosives manufacturer Dyno Nobel entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding with SCCL to assist in the ammonium nitrate and nitric acid plant’s development and operation. “We are very pleased to partner on developing this exciting project, which provides significant potential for the development of the Middle East’s mining industry,” Greg Hayne, President of Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific, said in a statement at the time. For Al Muhid, the launch of this plant aligns with the initiatives of the kingdom’s mining strategy, which prioritizes developing supply chains to position mining as the third pillar of Saudi industry, alongside oil and petrochemicals.

SCCL has already acquired 75% of the civil explosives market in the kingdom, playing a crucial role in localizing the military sector under Saudi’s Vision 2030.

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The CEO is well-positioned to lead this reform, given his familiarity with the kingdom’s key industries and their role in maximizing economic value. After graduating in civil engineering from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia in 1993, Al Muhid began his career at the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, where he worked for two years. He joined SABIC in 1995, where he dedicated two decades of his career, working in Jubail and Riyadh from 1995 to 2015 and playing a crucial role in the company’s expansion and strategic initiatives. In 2009, he served as the Global Director of Planning and Control for GE SABIC (SABIC JUNE 2024

77 THAMER AL MUHID

$402 million in 2030, according to data from Infinium Global Research. Saudi Arabia is anticipated to exhibit the most demand in the current decade for GCC mining explosives. Al Muhid says that SCCL has already acquired 75% of the civil explosives market in the kingdom, playing a crucial role in localizing the military sector under Saudi’s Vision 2030. This approach is time and cost-efficient for mining projects and infrastructure development in cities and strategic projects such as Qiddiya, NEOM, and the expansions of the Two Holy Mosques. SCCH implemented a resource planning system (ERP), resulting in higher data accuracy and faster response times for decision-making in all business sectors. “Over the past decade, there have been streamlined regulations, impressive infrastructure development, and significant budget allocation to support the Saudi government’s goal to ultimately meet the medical needs of every member of society and improve patient care,” highlights Eid Mansour, General Manager of Gilead Sciences in Saudi Arabia. “This creates an ideal landscape for leading multinational pharmaceutical companies to enter the market and make a positive impact.” A significant part of SCCH’s strategy is the construction of the first-ever ammonium nitrate and nitric acid plant in Ras Al-Khair by its subsidiary SCCL. Estimated to be completed in 2027 and cost $266.6 million, this plant by SCCL will have a production capacity of approximately 440,000 tons of nitric acid and 300,000 tons of ammonium nitrate per year, meeting Saudi Arabia’s chemical and raw material needs. “From strict regulations for safety and security to high financial costs, there are plenty of market barriers to entry for the explosives industry,” shares Al Muhid. “This is our competitive advantage, and this project will help boost our capacity to meet demand.”

THAMER AL MUHID

Innovative Plastics) in the U.S. and later, in 2010, he was involved in postmergers and acquisitions following SABIC’s acquisition of GE Plastic. In 2015, Al Muhid transitioned to the public sector as the general manager of policy, research, and planning at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The following year, he joined the Almarai Company as the general manager of the food business unit, where he worked until 2018. His career then led him to the Saudi Chemical Company, where he served as deputy general manager alongside the managing director of SINCO. Tasked with the challenge of heading the transformation program, Al Muhid was appointed managing director and group CEO of SCCH in February 2020. Localization forms a central component of SCCH’s transformation strategy, prioritizing a balanced outlook between local infrastructure in Saudi Arabia as well as exports. “Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and National Transformation Programme are designed to boost private participation in healthcare to improve access, quality, and disease prevention,” emphasizes Gabriel Chahine, Middle East Countries Leader at AlixPartners. “These initiatives are backed by a significant 2023 budget allocation exceeding $50 billion for health and social development, alongside education as the biggest expenditure for the country behind defense, underscoring the government’s commitment. These resources are fueling major investments in infrastructure expansion.” Beyond maintaining long-standing strategic agreements with over 28 multinational pharma manufacturing firms SCCH’s healthcare divisions are also focusing on creating sustainable local solutions. SCCL and AJA Pharma, for instance, are active members of the Saudi Export Development Authority’s “Made in Saudi Arabia” program, supporting the national development strategy F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Made In Saudi Program The National Industrial Development and Logistics Program and the Saudi Export Development Authority established the Made in Saudi program to celebrate homegrown talent and innovation, alongside positioning Saudi products and services as the preferred choice for domestic and international consumers.

Launched in

2021 Goal of increasing non-oil exports

50%

to of non-oil GDP by 2030.

sectors

180

countries importing Saudi Made products Over

1,740

companies More than

7,600

Saudi Made products Source: Vision 2030 website.

and increasing non-oil exports from the kingdom. “Aligned with our aspirations to transcend the boundaries of a local company, we are committed to diversifying our market reach as a strategic gateway to revenue diversification as relying solely on organic expansion will not be sufficient to drive our desired growth objectives,” adds the Group CEO. On the manufacturing front, AJA Pharma has signed a definitive agreement with Bioventure to market Ruxolitinib, a drug for treating tumors, in Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. SCCH also obtained a patent non-infringing letter for Ticagrelor through AJA Pharma. Additionally, AJA Pharma signed a collaboration agreement with GSK to manufacture Panadol and has completed the acquisition of Cialis from Eli Lilly, which represents a milestone in the transfer and localization of universal products. “This localization approach aims to ensure that Saudi Arabia remains self-sufficient for decades without compromising its export capabilities, mitigating any risk linked with supply shortages and logistical crises,” says Al Muhid. “Our vision is to achieve an equitable revenue distribution in the pharmaceutical industry between the local and external markets within a defined timeframe of approximately five years.” SCCH is also actively enhancing its research and development capabilities in military explosives and related solutions to establish itself as a center of excellence in local defense production. Its Riyadh-based research and development center in the Military Industries Complex will be the first military energetics center in the region. While the pace of the transformation may seem aggressive, don’t expect progress to stall. “We are looking for more challenging projects and complementary partners in Saudi Arabia and beyond in the next few years,” reveals Al Muhid. “My goal is to make SCCH a global name.” JUNE 2024

• THOUGHT LEADERS •

By Dena Almansoori, Group Chief AI and Data Officer, e&

The Future of Work: People-First, AI-Enabled

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

high-value, meaningful activities that require creativity and critical thinking. In healthcare, for instance, where every minute and every decision can have life-saving implications, leveraging AI applications in diagnostics, treatment planning, and predictive analytics provides healthcare professionals with personalized, timely, and effective care, enhancing patient outcomes and saving lives. It’s the symbiotic relationship between AI and human ingenuity where true innovation and progress lie. While AI excels in data analysis, automation, and precision, people bring creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking to the table. So, rather than viewing it as a dichotomy between humans and AI, it’s more accurate to see it as complementary forces that augment each other’s capabilities. By harnessing the strengths of AI and the human mind, we can unlock great potential, paving the way for transformative advancements in every aspect of our lives. AI adoption, however, requires clear standards and guidelines to mitigate potential risks, including algorithmic bias. Organizations must prioritize transparency, explainability, and accountability to build trust and ensure responsible adoption. AI is here to stay, and its potential to address humanity’s most pressing challenges, whether in healthcare, education, food security, or even sustainability, is too significant to ignore. As the architects of this technology, we hold the power and responsibility to shape its future—or perhaps more accurately, to shape our future with it. By harnessing AI’s power responsibly, organizations can usher in a new era of innovation, productivity, and growth and a future where work is inherently people-first, with AI serving as an enabling force.

All thoughts expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author.

JUNE 2024

THOUGHT LEADERS

We find ourselves in an era of extraordinary change in the workplace, surpassing any other period in recent history. A rapidly evolving digital transformation is revolutionizing where, what, and how we work. At the forefront of this transformation is generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which could represent one of the most significant advancements of our time. While AI technology has existed since the 1950s, its popularity has skyrocketed over the past year with the emergence of GenAI, fueled by remarkable technological progress, infrastructure speed, computing power, and data availability. Using advanced algorithms, machine learning techniques, deep learning, and natural language processing to simulate human-like intelligence and adaptability, GenAI is increasingly proficient at creating new content from existing data. It doesn’t just learn but also ‘imagines’ new concepts or content, much like the creative process of the human mind. GenAI is transforming workplaces by streamlining processes, boosting productivity through intelligent automation, and transforming employee experiences. However, its impact goes beyond efficiency or profits; it’s reshaping the very essence of how we work. AI has the potential to significantly boost economic growth and productivity. By 2030, it is predicted that AI technologies could add as much as $15.7 trillion annually to global economic output, surpassing the current total gross domestic product of both China and India combined. A substantial portion of this gain, approximately $6.6 trillion, would come from enhanced efficiency and increased productivity across various industries through the adoption of AI systems. Using AI-powered tools and algorithms to automate routine tasks frees people to focus on

• FEATURES •

ALISON GRINNELL

A NEW HOSPITALITY HUB Alison Grinnell, CEO of Ras Al Khaimah Hospitality Holding, is putting the small northern emirate on the map for tourists and residents. While up against fierce competition from its neighbors, RAK is making itself known.

BY JAMILA GANDHI F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

Alison Grinnell, CEO of Ras Al Khaimah Hospitality Holding.

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

ALISON GRINNELL

On January 1, 2024, the U.A.E.’s northernmost emirate, Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), made history with an eightminute-long fireworks and drone display along a 4.5km stretch of its waterfront, claiming two Guinness World Record titles—the “longest chain of aquatic floating fireworks,” spanning 5.8 kilometers, and the “longest straight-line drone display,” reaching two kilometers across the sky. RAK is making itself known for groundbreaking announcements. Among the crescendo of developments in the emirate, all eyes are currently eagerly fixed on the anticipated arrival of the $3.9 billion Wynn Al Marjan Island resort, slated to open in 2027. Perched on an artificial island—which took over nine years to develop since its inception in 2004—the resort is being spearheaded by local partners Marjan and RAKHH and has already made history as the first establishment in the U.A.E. to secure a regulatory casino license, adding a new dimension of allure to the region’s hospitality landscape. Marking Las Vegas-based developer Wynn Resorts’ first foray in the MENA region and its first-ever beachfront property, the integrated casino resort with 1,500 keys promises shopping, a gaming area, an event center, wellness and spa facilities, 24 dining and lounge experiences, and extensive entertainment options. “The Wynn Integrated Resort Development on Marjan Island will not only elevate RAK’s global appeal but also catalyze further investment opportunities,” anticipates Alison Grinnell, CEO of RAK Hospitality Holding (RAKHH). About an hour’s drive from Downtown Dubai, RAK is known for its ceramics and mountains. But the arrival of a luxury opulent casino resort aligns with Grinnell’s mission to redefine the world’s perception of the emirate. Established in 2014, the corporation is a subsidiary of the Investment and Development Office of RAK and is behind renowned brands such as Rixos Bab Al Bahr on Al Marjan Island, Hilton Garden Inn at The F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Creek, Hilton Beach Resort, and The Ritz Carlton in Al Wadi Desert Conservation Area. The company’s recent milestones paint a vivid picture of its trajectory. In 2023 alone, RAKHH’s hotel portfolio witnessed a series of landmark achievements. The launch of the Signature Villas at Ritz Carlton, introducing a unique product to the U.A.E. market, and the strategic rebranding of Marjan Island Resort to Pullman Resort. Moreover, Stirling Hospitality Advisors, under RAKHH’s umbrella, achieved a 17% EBITDA growth in their asset-managed hotels, while RAK National Hotels and Stirling Hospitality Advisors both experienced circa 26% growth. The positive figures extend to RAK’s holistic performance. The Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA) declared 2023 to be the most successful year in tourism for the emirate, with a record-breaking 1.22 million overnight arrivals. This marked an 8% rise from the previous year, driven by a 24% surge in international visitors. From 2022 to 2023, RAK witnessed a 20% jump in its hotel occupancy rate—the highest among any emirate in the country. In comparison, neighboring emirates Dubai and Abu Dhabi recorded a 6.4% and 4.2% growth rate, respectively.

“The approach is always collaborative and for the benefit of the emirate.” According to data by on-demand chauffeur service Blacklane Middle East, RAK ranks as its third-largest operating emirate in the U.A.E., behind Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The premium transportation application has already witnessed approximately 50% growth in demand for rides to RAK in 2024. “We've observed a steady rise in demand for rides to RAK, driven by both domestic and international travelers seeking relaxation and luxury experiences, ” reveals Nicolas Soucaille, General Manager of Blacklane Middle East. “The emirate’s natural beauty and eco-tourism appeal have been enhanced further with the introduction of new developments and luxury hotels on Al Marjan Island.” RAK’s appeal has continued to expand with the announcement of several new hospitality projects, including Le Meridien, W Hotels, JW Marriott, Hilton, Nikki Beach, and more niche brands like Nobu. “Despite being the country’s fourth largest emirate with an estimated population of 0.4 million, RAK has always been a strong staycation market, and whilst this JUNE 2024

Women In Hospitality

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

These are the three hospitality leaders featured in Forbes Middle East’s list of the 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2024. Rank

Name

Designation & Company

Katerina Giannouka

CEO, Jumeirah Group

Greek

Marloes Knippenberg

CEO, Kerten Hospitality

Dutch

Alison Grinnell

CEO, RAK Hospitality Holding

British

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Nationality

JUNE 2024

83 ALISON GRINNELL

obviously peaked during with investor-friendly the pandemic, it remains regulations and luxurious healthy today, and we don’t residential and hospitality see that changing going properties with great forward,” reflects Grinnell. ROI have all contributed Nevertheless, the CEO to making RAK highly reveals how the company covetable within the region’s has recorded a strong dynamic real estate market,” resurgence in the global explains Arch. Abdulla Al market in recent years. Abdouli, CEO of Marjan. In 2023, RAK’s top five “With the government international source markets committed to enhancing The $3.9 billion Wynn Al Marjan Island resort, were Russia (31.3%), the emirate’s appeal as an slated to open in 2027. Kazakhstan (9.8%), the U.K. investment hub, RAK’s (7.8%), Germany (5.1%), booming hospitality and and India (4.7%), according to RAKTDA. The data tourism sector offers many lessons for other regions indicates a 50-50 split between 2023 domestic and hoping to replicate its success.” With the imminent international visitor arrivals for RAK, underscoring the opening of the Wynn Al Marjan Island resort, Grinnell growing interest in the emirate from overseas travelers. projects a new wave of investments, further cementing “No longer is every visitor to RAK coming to lie on the RAK’s status as a thriving economic hub. beach; now there’s interest and options to camp, hike, In addition to its tourism prowess, RAK has also stay in a luxurious property, and discover the desert,” cemented its status as a global hub for business she explains. “The demographic will change between and social events. In 2023, RAK witnessed 23% properties and location—and that is really the beauty of growth in its Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, the emirate and what is working well for us.” and Exhibitions (MICE) revenue and 103% increase Still, RAK’s allure extends beyond its scenic vistas in revenue from weddings. A series of high-profile and luxurious accommodations; it’s a strategic events were also held in RAK last year, including the investment destination drawing attention from global 2023 WMF Minifootball World Cup, DP World Tour, players. In April, U.S.-based Statevolt announced a RAK Half Marathon, Arab Aviation Summit, Exotic $3.2 billion state-of-the-art battery cell gigafactory in Wedding Planning Conference, and the Global Citizen RAK. The energy storage project is expected to produce Forum. On the business activity front, RAKTDA an annual capacity of up to 40GWh upon completion. reported a 10% increase in the total capital of valid Additionally, London-listed real estate developer Dar business licenses issued in 2023, hitting $2.12 billion Global has joined forces with Aston Martin to develop a (AED 7.8 billion). beachfront residential community on Al Marjan Island, Grinnell’s career trajectory mirrors RAK’s narrative which has a development value of $250 million. The of transformation and growth. After graduating from partnership will mark the British luxury automaker’s Loughborough University in Economics in 1994, first real estate collaboration in the GCC. “Strategic she began her professional journey as a chartered location with a robust and diversified economy along accountant with Arthur Andersen in the U.K. and

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

In Numbers: Man-Made Island Of Al Marjan

2.7 million square meters of reclaimed land

23 kms

of waterfronts

11 million

square meters of planned development

unique islands

1,900

existing residential units

operational hotels

1,500

existing hotel keys

600

holiday villas

7.8 kms

of beaches

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Strategy for Wellbeing 2031. From green spaces and sporting and leisure amenities to dedicated professional training areas, the project was motivated by the absence of a centralized staff housing that was easily accessible, functional, and not retrofitted. “It has been difficult in the past to attract and retain staff in RAK as Dubai is a neighboring emirate and is a big draw for people,” the CEO reveals. The research reflects the challenges of staff retention. According to PwC survey findings, a significant 39% of respondents in the Middle East expressed a higher likelihood of switching employers in 2023, compared to 30% reported in 2022. Notably, this trend is predominantly driven by younger employees, with 37% of Gen Z and 40% of millennials leading the movement. “We have to offer our teams better personal and career development opportunities and make work a fulfilling place to come to. It’s hard work, but it’s critical to us.” Looking ahead, RAKHH’s ambitions soar higher. Among the aggressive targets are plans for new activities on Jebel Jais Mountain, signed agreements for multiple hotel projects, and the launch of a dynamic events calendar through Safarak, highlighting RAK’s multifaceted approach to catering to diverse demographics and global trends. “It’s critical to us to diversify our hotel portfolio to ensure that RAK has plentiful luxury, lifestyle, and mountain offerings to attract a wide range of international and domestic guests,” explains Grinnell. The firm’s portfolio focuses on collaborative differentiation and getting brands that complement existing properties set in the right location, drawing in different demographics from different source markets. As a triathlete, the CEO welcomes healthy competition with open arms. “There is ample opportunity for all developers and owners. We can’t develop all of this capacity ourselves, so we are keen to see more competition in the market, new brands coming in, and bringing new food and beverage products,” says the bullish hospitality veteran. “The approach is always collaborative and for the benefit of the emirate.” JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM SOURCE

ALISON GRINNELL

the U.S. before transitioning to PwC in 2001. At PwC, her focus shifted towards the hospitality sector, where she conducted financial audits for hotels and eventually moved into advisory roles. In 2012, she relocated to Dubai from PwC London to help establish and develop the firm’s Middle East Hospitality and Leisure practice into a leading entity in the field. In a fateful turn of events, RAKHH became one of Grinnell’s first clients back when the emirate had only a handful of hotels. This connection came full circle in 2016 when she received a phone call at Maldives airport from RAKHH’s former CEO, inviting her to join as the company’s CFO. “It didn’t take me long to say yes,” she reflects. “I loved what RAK was looking to do and what the emirate was trying to achieve, which really drew me in. What you see today is what people were envisioning 10 years ago.” Joining RAKHH in 2016 marked Grinnell’s first permanent move into the industry, transitioning from the structured environment of a corporate firm to a smaller, more dynamic organization. “I was accustomed to having the ‘engine’ of a big four firm behind me, so this was a steep learning curve, particularly as I initially joined as CFO,” she recalls. In 2019, Grinnell was appointed CEO, expanding her responsibilities to encompass the group’s businesses, including hotel ownership, hospitality logistics, asset management, advisory services, and the newly formed RAK Leisure subsidiary. The company has since emerged as a strategic powerhouse in the industry, and now Grinnell is redefining hospitality for her most prized asset for success—her people. RAKHH is developing a cutting-edge staff accommodation facility tailored to the needs of its hospitality workforce, slated for completion in early 2025. The university campus-style property will house over 2,000 staff members, primarily from RAKHH’s portfolio as well as some others. “This is a very important project for us to ensure that we are offering the best accommodation for our hospitality colleagues and position RAK as a great place to work and live,” she adds, emphasizing the significance of this project, which is aligned with the U.A.E.’s National

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JUNE 2024

By Fouzia Azzab

Traditional Markets: Where a Rich History Meets a Prosperous Present The vibrant and bustling souks and markets of the Middle East have long attracted traders, shoppers, and visitors. With many of these community hubs still in existence today, the role of traditional markets in MENA’s economies continues to be vital.

Khan el-Khalili Market

raditional markets play a vital role in the cultural heritage of the Middle East and North Africa region. They have always been and continue to be places where people gather, share news, and find joy. Throughout history, these markets have transformed into vibrant shopping destinations and popular tourist attractions.

The historical origins of traditional markets

In the past, traditional markets in the Arab world emerged as trading hubs where nomads and city dwellers could exchange goods. They were established in specific, well-known locations, and during particular occasions such as holidays or agricultural seasons, they drew both local residents and traders from far-off regions. Some of these were permanent fixtures in certain markets, while others were seasonal, such as Souk Majanna (Majanna F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Market) and Souk Thul-Majaz (Thul-Majaz Market) in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, there were general markets attracting people from various regions throughout the year. The most famous historical market in the region is Souk Okaz, the largest market for Arabs during pre-Islamic and Islamic times. Dating back to 501 AD, it is located north of Ta’if in Saudi Arabia. Souk Okaz was a renowned hub for trade, knowledge and thought exchange, literature, and diverse cultures of Arab tribes and visitors from across the Arabian Peninsula. Poets, orators, and writers attended, and market-goers engaged in sports such as equestrian events, running, and archery. After a 13-century hiatus, the city of Ta’if revived Souq Okaz in 2007, transforming it into an annual event offering visitors and guests a rich cultural program. This includes lectures, seminars, and cultural, literary, poetic, and scientific evenings, featuring prominent Saudi and Arab intellectuals, writers, thought leaders, and poets. JUNE 2024

MERYDOLLA/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

LIFESTYLE

• LIFESTYLE •

FARIS ALALI PHOTOGRAPHY/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Souq and run alongside it. In Morocco, tourists view the Medina of Marrakech Souk as an enchanting experience reminiscent of the tales from One Thousand and One Nights. Its history dates back to the Middle Ages when it was a part of the old city “The Medina” established in the 11th century. The market has been a commercial and social hub where local residents and traders from different regions gather to exchange goods. The market boasts a traditional architectural style with winding alleys bustling with shops. It showcases an extensive array of products that mirror Morocco’s rich cultural heritage, featuring opulent carpets, silver jewelry, traditional Moroccan clothing such as djellabas and kaftans, and a plethora of handicrafts like ceramics and pottery. Numerous markets branch off from it, with the most renowned being Jemaa el-Fna Square. In the U.A.E., the historic Deira’s Souk area in Dubai, also referred to as the Grand Souk Deira, was founded in 1850, and has since evolved into a cluster of markets that have been renovated to showcase their authentic architecture. This market gained popularity for its proximity to the port area, where traders receive shipments from commercial ships arriving from Africa and India. Over 220 historical buildings and their surroundings have been refurbished to offer visitors a distinctive experience.

Over time, traditional markets have gradually transformed from hubs of cultural and social interaction and bustling shopping centers to tourist destinations that attract both local residents and foreign visitors. These markets have become places where a wide array of goods Souq Waqif and souvenirs are available for sale. This transformation has significantly contributed to the economic prosperity of countries in the region, establishing them as thriving commercial hubs. Among the region’s ancient and renowned markets that witnessed this evolution over time, is Souq Waqif in Qatar. Dating back to 1955, it stands as one of the oldest markets in Qatar and the Gulf region, situated at the heart of Doha. Initially a trading hub for locals, Souq Waqif, meaning “standing market,” is located in the middle of Doha, next to the Corniche and Musheireb City. The name dates back more than 100 years when buying and selling in that area took place while standing. The market is characterized by its carefully restored traditional buildings, alleys, walls, and shops. Visitors flock to Souq Waqif to enjoy shopping from stores selling traditional clothes, incense, spices, handicrafts, and antiques. Additionally, the market is known for its restaurants and cafes, serving Qatari and Arab cuisine. In Egypt, there is Khan el-Khalili Market, where narrow and winding alleys are lined up with shops selling The Evolution of Shopping handicrafts, silver and gold jewelry, antiques, and souvenirs. In recent decades, MENA has witnessed significant economic Khan el-Khalili was established in 1382 by Mamluk Amir growth, leading to increased purchasing power and higher Jahrkas El Khalili in Fatimid Cairo. The origin of the name consumption rates among individuals. Additionally, the “Khan” goes back to Persian origins. openness to the world and influence from other cultures have At that time, it was part of a group of markets serving the transformed markets to offer a more diverse range of products local community and traders who came to the city, functioning and services. Shopping methods have also evolved, with the as a center for trade and social activity throughout the ages. emergence of modern shopping centers, or malls, which Today, it is renowned as one of the top tourist markets in Cairo, combine convenience and entertainment. Online shopping has where visitors can enjoy musical and literary performances in also flourished, with the e-commerce sector in MENA growing traditional cafes like the famous El-Fishawy café. by 11.8% in 2023 to reach around $29 billion, according to a In Syria, Al-Hamidiyah Souq stands as a testament to report by EZDubai. the charm of Arab markets, characterized by its domed However, traditional in-store shopping continues to roof and shops adorning both sides of the narrow alleys, a dominate as the preferred option for consumers in the Middle sight described by researchers as one of the most beautiful East, particularly for those who value inspecting products in the region. Its establishment dates back to 1780, before buying. According to a survey conducted by when the first part of it was built under the rule of Stay PwC, 49% of shoppers prefer visiting brick-andOttoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I, hence its name. connected with our latest mortar stores in markets, while 43% opt for online The market showcases an array of products, ranging business news. shopping. from silk and embroidered fabrics to copperware and Amid this competition, traditional markets ancient artifacts. It serves as a destination for tourists remain a source of joy and happiness, retaining their in search of a cultural shopping experience reflecting cultural and heritage essence, making them unique a historical ambiance. More than 20 specialized destinations that bridge the past and the present. historical markets branch out from Al-Hamidiyah F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

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87 LIFESTYLE

From cultural hubs to commercial centers

• THOUGHTS ON •

Conflict “Give them the cold steel, boys!”

“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.”

—Lewis Armistead “No one fights dirtier or more brutally than blood. Only family knows its own weaknesses, the exact placement of the heart.”

—Margaret Heffernan “The business of art lies just in this: to make understood and felt that which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.”

—Whitney Otto “To live is to war with trolls.” —Henrik Ibsen “Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

—Leo Tolstoy “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” —Romans 12:18

—Horace Mann “He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.” —Friedrich Nietzsche “I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself when, in the ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.” —Michel de Montaigne “Why do people always assume that volume will succeed when logic won’t?” —L.J. Smith F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Horace Mann

“Politics as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” —Henry Adams

“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict.” —Dorothy Thompson

“Your gentleness shall force more than your force move us to gentleness.”

“It takes great maturity to understand that opinion is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.”

—William Shakespeare

—Milan Kundera

“War hath no fury like a noncombatant.” —C.E. Montague

SOURCES: HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN, BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE; THE COMPLETE ESSAYS, BY MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE; DISENCHANTMENT, BY C.E. MONTAGUE; NIGHTFALL, BY L.J. SMITH; ENCOUNTER, BY MILAN KUNDERA; AS YOU LIKE IT, BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; WHAT IS ART?, BY LEO TOLSTOY; THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS, BY HENRY ADAMS; HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT, BY WHITNEY OTTO.

FINAL THOUGHT “The victors of the battles of tomorrow will be those who can best harness thought to action.”

—B. C. Forbes

JUNE 2024

IMAGE FROM WIKIPEDIA.ORG

THOUGHTS

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

JUNE 2024