The largest provider of healthcare services in the Middle East, Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group, is planning to IPO next month.
The hospital operator has appointed Jadwa Investment and Riyad Capital as advisers on the deal. Financial services provider Saudi Fransi Capital was appointed lead manager of the deal in October.
Reports suggest that this could value the company at US$2.5bn.
The deal will be the country’s first IPO following Saudi Aramco’s success in raising more than $29bn in December.
As reported in October, Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group had its IPO plans approved by the market regulator Capital Market Authority. It is intending to sell a 15% stake in company made up of 52.5m shares.
The CMA has relaxed the traditional IPO requirement to list at least 30% of a company in order to encourage more family-owned companies to list, part of a bid to deepen its capital markets under a reform push aimed at reducing the region’s reliance on oil revenues.
Founded in 1995 in Riyadh, the group had previously abandoned plans for a Tadawul float in 2014 following a drop in oil prices which saw local market conditions deteriorate.
Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group currently operates 20 medical facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain.
There are only a couple of healthcare names listed on Tadawul; Middle East Healthcare Company (MEAHCO), the country’s largest healthcare company and which owns and operates the Saudi German Hospitals, and National Medical Care, which operates two hospitals in the country.
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