Saudi Stock Exchange to include cross-listings by Q1 2019: El-Kuwaiz

The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) could witness the first cross-listing from international companies either by the end of this year or the first quarter of 2019, Mohammed El-Kuwaiz, chairman of Capital Markets Authority (CMA), told Argaam on Thursday.

“We are making sure the legal eco-system in place. And second is to make sure that we have a sufficient number of pilots that are ready to file in readiness of the set of regulations to be issued,” El-Kuwaiz said.

“We believe it will be either by the end of this year or possibly by Q1 2019, depending on market context and environment,” he added.

Officials at Tadawul and other investment banks are currently working on identifying a few appropriate pilots, the CMA chief said.

Speaking about the recent MSCI decision to include Tadawul in its Emerging Market Index, El-Kuwaiz said while it marks the culmination of the changes and reforms that the stock exchange has undertaken over the past couple of years, it is not the end of reforms.

“The most notable thing that we are working on in the immediate future is a price stabilization set of regulations, which is actually the last piece of the puzzle in order to make sure that the regulatory eco-system is ready for a listing and offering of any size, including the size of Saudi Aramco,” El-Kuwaiz said.

The market authority is also working on new products – exchanged-traded funds (ETFs) – that are closed-ended, but listed instruments or investment vehicles that are listed in the capital market and that have the liquidity to be traded like shares, he added.

“And then possibly by the end of this year or beginning of next year, we are working on updating the investment fund regulations, which includes regulations offering of all investment funds to make sure they are more amenable to asset managers, (but also) appropriately protect investors and unit-holders,” El-Kuwaiz said.

Write to Reem Abdellatif at reem.a@argaam.com and

Nadeshda Zareen at nadeshda.zareen@argaamplus.com