Flynas to float 30% stake in Saudi IPO after record profit
RIYADH: Saudi low-cost carrier flynas plans to float 30 percent of its share capital in an initial public offering on the Kingdom's main stock market, becoming the country's first airline to list on Tadawul.
The IPO, approved by the Capital Market Authority, will involve 51.26 million shares, including both newly issued shares and those offered by existing shareholders. Book-building for institutional investors is set to begin on May 12, with retail subscriptions to follow at the end of the month, the company said in a release.
Flynas will also become the first Gulf airline to go public in nearly two decades, reflecting renewed investor interest in the region's fast-growing aviation sector and ongoing market liberalization.
The move comes amid a buoyant IPO environment in the Middle East and North Africa, where regional markets saw a surge in listings and capital-raising activity in early 2025. According to an EY report, 14 IPOs raised $2.4 billion in the first quarter — marking a 106 percent increase in proceeds compared to the same period in 2024.
Bander Al-Mohanna, CEO and managing director of flynas, said: 'This strategic move will propel us toward becoming the leading low-cost carrier in the MENA region for short and medium-haul markets by 2030. Through this IPO, we are offering investors access to a unique and valuable asset in the rapidly growing KSA and GCC aviation sector.'
The company said the retail subscriptions for flynas shares will run from May 28 to June 1, following institutional book-building. Share allocation and refunds are scheduled for early June, with trading expected to commence after formal listing procedures are complete.
Flynas, which launched in 2007, holds a 23 percent share of Saudi Arabia's domestic aviation market and operates one of the youngest fleets in the region, with an average aircraft age of 3.2 years. The airline reported an on-time performance rate of 88 percent in 2024.
The carrier plans to use proceeds from the IPO to expand its fleet — including a major order for 225 Airbus aircraft — enhance services for Hajj and Umrah travelers, and invest in cargo operations.
'With an all-Airbus fleet and a significant orderbook, we are poised to meet the increasing air travel demand within, to, and from the Kingdom, supported by our strategic bases in the Kingdom's busiest international airports,' said Al-Mohanna.
The offering comes on the back of record financial results in 2024, with flynas reporting revenue of SR7.56 billion ($2.02 billion), a 19 percent year-on-year increase, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization rose 31 percent to SR2.18 billion.
Net profit reached SR434 million, up 8 percent from the previous year. The airline's operational efficiency and expanding network contributed to these results, with passenger numbers growing by 31 percent to 14.7 million in 2024.
The airline is a key beneficiary of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, which aims to transform the Kingdom into a global aviation and tourism hub. Targets include 330 million passengers and 120 million visitors by 2030.
'As a leading pan-regional LCC, we are well-positioned to benefit from the robust demand driven by Saudi Arabia's aviation and tourism strategy, as well as the strong growth in passenger traffic across the GCC and MENA markets,' Al-Mohanna added.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Asharq Al-Awsat
2 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Swedish Ambassador: Swedish Companies Planning on Setting up Regional Headquarters in Saudi Arabia
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Sweden are witnessing rapid development with the expansion of cooperation in the fields of innovation, logistics and services and others. Swedish Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Petra Menander told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Saudi-Swedish joint committee is currently working on further deepening relations. 'In November last year, we agreed on 45 activities across four sectors to improve our cooperation, half of which have been implemented,' she added. 'Sweden and Saudi Arabia are natural partners in the global transition toward a more sustainable, knowledge-based economy,' she remarked. 'The presence of approximately 60 Swedish companies in the Kingdom, many of which are expanding their operations, demonstrates strong confidence in the Saudi market and its long-term potential,' she stressed. 'Saudi Arabia is Sweden's largest trading partner in the Middle East and North Africa. While trade volumes vary year to year, the overall trajectory is one of steady growth. Our bilateral trade grew almost 5 % last year and has increased by more than 90% since 2018,' the ambassador went on to say. Moreover, Menander added: 'As the European Union, we are Saudi Arabia's most important partner for investments and trade and that is a relationship that can grow deeper. Sweden is one of the strongest supporters of free trade within the European Union and we believe that there is a great potential to further increase trade between our countries.' 'Half of the Swedish companies have or are planning to set up regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia, many of them are engaged in local manufacturing in the Kingdom and they invest in research and in training the thousands of young Saudi talents they employ,' she said. She added that Sweden has a strong desire to expand in green energy and smart climate solutions. Swedish companies, such as Hitachi Energy, ABB and Systemair, are contributing to energy efficiency, electrification, and renewable infrastructure. In the fields of logistics and infrastructure, she noted that 'Swedish engineering and design firms are contributing to the planning and execution of major infrastructure projects and have a strong track record in delivering leading solutions for major projects, including within road, rail and air transport with companies such as Sweco, Volvo Trucks and Scania.' Healthcare and life sciences are among the foundations of cooperation. 'Swedish firms such as Diaverum, Getinge, and AstraZeneca are delivering high-quality care and conducting clinical research in the Kingdom,' said Menander. Furthermore, she revealed that Swedish companies, such as Epiroc and Quant, are helping to modernize and decarbonize the mining sector through advanced technologies. Sweden is also a global leader in digital maturity and connectivity. Companies like Ericsson are not only advancing 5G and 6G technologies but also investing in local R&D partnerships, added the ambassador. In terms of smart industry and automation, she said: 'With companies like Tetra Pak, Roxtec and SKF, Sweden supports the development of sustainable and efficient industrial ecosystems.' These areas reflect Sweden's strengths in innovation, equality, and long-term thinking essential for building resilient and future-ready economies, added the ambassador. Furthermore, Menander described ties between Saudi Arabia and Sweden as excellent. 'They are grounded in mutual respect, shared ambitions, and a commitment to long-term partnership. Our kingdoms are united by a forward-looking vision - one that embraces creativity, working together towards sustainability and growth,' she told Asharq Al-Awsat. 'In foreign policy our positions align om many key areas, as was seen during political consultations in Stockholm between Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Eng. Waleed bin Abdulkarim El-Khereiji and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Dag Hartelius.' She also noted the 'close cooperation between Saudi and Swedish business sectors, where there are great opportunities to enhance the partnership between our two countries.' 'I attended the executive meeting of the Saudi-Swedish Joint Business Council in Stockholm in May, where leading private companies from our two kingdoms discussed new economic initiatives,' she said. 'There about 60 Swedish companies with a presence in Saudi Arabia feel at home and are committed to strengthening their ties with the Kingdom. According to a Business Climate Survey which was conducted among Swedish companies and just published, 91% view the business climate as good or very good and 74% plan to increase their investments.' 'We also see an exciting dialogue in new areas, for instance through Swedish participation in the recent Arab European Cities Dialogue, where participants from Sweden saw many similarities when two regions came together to discuss governance, urban planning, and digitalization for a better future,' stressed Menander. 'We see that the numbers of visitors in both directions between our countries are going up, and we see new partnerships budding almost every day. We see more Saudi film and music appearing in Sweden and we increasingly see Swedish fashion, music and gaming in Saudi Arabia,' she remarked. 'In fact, I often meet young Saudis who know about Sweden because they work for Swedish companies like Ikea and H&M.' 'Finally, we see a great interest in deeper cooperation in the field of innovation. Sweden ranks among the most innovative countries in the world and Saudi Arabia makes impressive investments into building an innovative ecosystem with close links between research and entrepreneurship,' she noted. 'We are happy to see that the cooperation is flourishing, including through institutional cooperation and by visits of start-ups both from Saudi Arabia to Sweden and from Sweden to Saudi Arabia,' continued Menander. 'Our cooperation spans a wide range of sectors where Swedish expertise and values align closely with the ambitions of Vision 2030. During our recent national day celebration, some of our companies displayed examples of how they contribute to these goals,' she said. 'These investments are aligned with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, focusing on sectors such as green transition, healthcare, logistics and smart manufacturing and in many cases also include investments into research and development in Saudi Arabia,' the ambassador stated. 'In parallel, we see a growing interest in collaboration between Swedish and Saudi incubators, particularly to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).' 'In May, Business Sweden, the Swedish Trade and Invest Council in Riyadh, organized two trade delegations to Saudi Arabia. The first focused on infrastructure projects and included Swedish companies specializing in digital solutions, construction equipment, energy, waste management, and air and water treatment solutions. These companies explored how Swedish expertise could contribute to Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 by engaging with several giga projects,' Menander explained.
Arab News
12 hours ago
- Arab News
Lebanon aims to lure back wealthy Gulf tourists to jumpstart its war-torn economy
BEIRUT: Fireworks lit up the night sky over Beirut's famous St. Georges Hotel as hit songs from the 1960s and 70s filled the air in a courtyard overlooking the Mediterranean retro-themed event was hosted last month by Lebanon's Tourism Ministry to promote the upcoming summer season and perhaps recapture some of the good vibes from an era viewed as a golden one for the country. In the years before a civil war began in 1975, Lebanon was the go-to destination for wealthy tourists from neighboring Gulf countries seeking beaches in summer, snow-capped mountains in winter and urban nightlife the decade after the war, tourists from Gulf countries – and crucially, Saudi Arabia – came back, and so did Lebanon's economy. But by the early 2000s, as the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah gained power, Lebanon's relations with Gulf countries began to sour. Tourism gradually dried up, starving its economy of billions of dollars in annual after last year's bruising war with Israel, Hezbollah is much weaker and Lebanon's new political leaders sense an opportunity to revitalize the economy once again with help from wealthy neighbors. They aim to disarm Hezbollah and rekindle ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which in recent years have prohibited their citizens from visiting Lebanon or importing its products.'Tourism is a big catalyst, and so it's very important that the bans get lifted,' said Laura Khazen Lahoud, the country's tourism the highway leading to the Beirut airport, once-ubiquitous banners touting Hezbollah's leadership have been replaced with commercial billboards and posters that read 'a new era for Lebanon.' In the center of Beirut, and especially in neighborhoods that hope to attract tourists, political posters are coming down, and police and army patrols are on the are signs of thawing relations with some Gulf neighbors. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have lifted yearslong travel eyes are now on Saudi Arabia, a regional political and economic powerhouse, to see if it will follow suit, according to Lahoud and other Lebanese officials. A key sticking point is security, these officials say. Although a ceasefire with Israel has been in place since November, near-daily airstrikes have continued in southern and eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah over the years had built its political base and powerful military as a diplomatic and economic bridgeAs vital as tourism is — it accounted for almost 20 percent of Lebanon's economy before it tanked in 2019 — the country's leaders say it is just one piece of a larger puzzle they are trying to put back agricultural and industrial sectors are in shambles, suffering a major blow in 2021, when Saudi Arabia banned their exports after accusing Hezbollah of smuggling drugs into Riyadh. Years of economic dysfunction have left the country's once-thriving middle class in a state of World Bank says poverty nearly tripled in Lebanon over the past decade, affecting close to half its population of nearly 6 million. To make matters worse, inflation is soaring, with the Lebanese pound losing 90 percent of its value, and many families lost their savings when banks is seen by Lebanon's leaders as the best way to kickstart the reconciliation needed with Gulf countries — and only then can they move on to exports and other economic growth opportunities.'It's the thing that makes most sense, because that's all Lebanon can sell now,' said Sami Zoughaib, research manager at The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think summer still weeks away, flights to Lebanon are already packed with expats and locals from countries that overturned their travel bans, and hotels say bookings have been the event hosted last month by the tourism ministry, the owner of the St. Georges Hotel, Fady El-Khoury, beamed. The hotel, owned by his father in its heyday, has acutely felt Lebanon's ups and downs over the decades, closing and reopening multiple times because of wars. 'I have a feeling that the country is coming back after 50 years,' he a recent weekend, as people crammed the beaches of the northern city of Batroun, and jet skis whizzed along the Mediterranean, local business people sounded optimistic that the country was on the right path.'We are happy, and everyone here is happy,' said Jad Nasr, co-owner of a private beach club. 'After years of being boycotted by the Arabs and our brothers in the Gulf, we expect this year for us to always be full.'Still, tourism is not a panacea for Lebanon's economy, which for decades has suffered from rampant corruption and has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund for years over a recovery plan that would include billions in loans and require the country to combat corruption, restructure its banks, and bring improvements to a range of public services, including electricity and those and other reforms, Lebanon's wealthy neighbors will lack confidence to invest there, experts said. A tourism boom alone would serve as a 'morphine shot that would only temporarily ease the pain' rather than stop the deepening poverty in Lebanon, Zoughaib tourism minister, Lahoud, agreed, saying a long-term process has only just begun.'But we're talking about subjects we never talked about before,' she said. 'And I think the whole country has realized that war doesn't serve anyone, and that we really need our economy to be back and flourish again.'
Arab News
a day ago
- Arab News
How companies should — and should not — deploy AI
Even though nearly half of office workers now turn to generative AI in their daily work, fewer than one in four CEOs report that the technology has delivered its promised value at scale. What is going on? The answer may lie in the fact that generative AI was initially presented as a productivity tool, which led to it being strongly associated with cost-cutting and workforce reductions. Spotting the risk, some 42 percent of employees surveyed in 2024 worried that their job might not exist in the next decade. In the absence of training and upskilling to harness the technology's potential, it is not surprising that there would be more resistance than enthusiasm. Like antibodies fighting off a foreign body, there can be an 'immune response' within organizations, with employees and managers alike resisting change and looking for reasons why AI 'won't work' for them. In addition to slowing adoption, such resistance has prevented a fuller exploration of other potential benefits, such as improved decision-making, enhanced creativity, the elimination of routine tasks and higher job satisfaction. As a result, there has been little consideration of how to 'reinvest' the time that AI can save. AI adoption is not about saving minutes. It is about reinventing work for the benefit of employees and the organization. Vinciane Beauchene and Allison Bailey Yet our research finds that employees who use generative AI regularly can already save five hours per working week, allowing them to pursue new tasks, further experiment with the technology, collaborate in new ways with coworkers or simply finish earlier. The challenge for business leaders, then, is to emphasize these potential benefits and provide guidance on where to refocus one's time to maximize value creation. Consider the example of a global healthcare provider that recently deployed generative AI across its 100,000 employees. It created a scalable AI learning program with three objectives: high AI literacy across the organization, so that all employees could make the most of the technology; a broad suite of AI tools for every work scenario; and compliant usage. Owing to this holistic approach, the company soon improved employee satisfaction and productivity at the same time. But AI adoption is not about saving minutes. It is about reinventing work for the benefit of employees and the organization. When a company treats generative AI merely as a timesaving tool, it is more likely to chase piecemeal use cases — 10 minutes saved here, 30 minutes saved there — which will not have a meaningful impact on the overall business. After all, small-scale AI applications that yield diffuse productivity gains are difficult to reinvest or capture on a profit and loss statement. Without a holistic strategy to redesign their core processes around AI, organizations risk optimizing isolated tasks rather than fundamentally improving how work gets done. The result, all too often, is that bottlenecks will simply be relocated to other parts of the process or value chain, limiting overall productivity gains. For example, in software development, an AI that speeds up coding can lead to more arduous debugging or other delays, negating any efficiency gains. Real value comes from integrating AI across the entire development lifecycle. This example also raises a larger issue: Too many organizations pursue scale without first reimagining the structures and workflows needed to harness cumulative gains. The usual result is a missed opportunity, because time savings that are not reinvested strategically tend to dissipate. Rather than adopting a let-a-hundred-flowers-bloom approach, organizations should pursue a few big transformational initiatives focused on reimagining work from end to end. The true promise of generative AI lies in unlocking what we call the 'golden triangle' of value: productivity, quality and engagement/joy. An AI strategy should reimagine workflows to eliminate inefficiencies, augment decision-making and processes to encourage innovation and creativity, and enhance work, not mechanize it. Employees are more likely to embrace AI enthusiastically when it eliminates drudgery, feeds creativity and accelerates learning. Proper attention to upskilling will ensure that the technology augments human potential, boosting workplace engagement and job satisfaction. By emphasizing engagement and the quality of experience alongside productivity, organizations can move beyond a cost-driven perspective to one that creates more value for the business, its employees and its customers. AI can be much more than an automation mechanism, provided that firms adopt a comprehensive strategy for deploying it. Organizations should pursue a few big transformational initiatives focused on reimagining work from end to end. Vinciane Beauchene and Allison Bailey Business leaders should keep five imperatives in mind. The first is to focus on the biggest pools of value with the best-defined business cases for integrating AI. The second is to reimagine work, rather than simply optimizing it. AI should be used to transform entire workflows, not just automate a few steps. Third, managers must invest in upskilling, so that everyone understands the technology and its potential. Fourth, the golden triangle, with its balance between productivity, quality and employee engagement/joy, should be businesses' golden rule. Lastly, organizations should measure value beyond cost savings. Businesses that deploy generative AI most effectively will track its effects on workforce empowerment, agility and new revenue streams, not just operational costs. By heeding these imperatives, companies can use AI as a force for reinvention, rather than just a productivity tool. In the process, they will set the pace for the next era of business.
