TASI rises 1% after Saudi eases foreign ownership limit

Saudi equities surged on Thursday after the Kingdom relaxed its limit on foreign share ownership.

The benchmark Tadawul All Share Index (TASI)  rose one percent, or 85 points, to 8,770 points, by 12.10 pm Riyadh time.

Arab National Bank rose 6.4 percent, Al Rajhi Bank added 1.2 percent, while National Commercial Bank gained 1.6 percent.

Saudi Arabia has relaxed a 49 percent limit for foreign strategic investors in a company's shares, aiming to attract foreign funds as the Kingdom opens up the region's largest market.

“The relaxation on foreign ownership limit for ‘strategic’ foreign investors has implications for certain specific stocks, where the foreign room was low and hence MSCI had a 0.5x adjustment factor,” Vrajesh Bhandari, senior portfolio manager - asset management, Al Mal Capital, told Argaam.

“The biggest beneficiary would be Arab National Bank, which was completely excluded from the index due to the 40 percent stake owned by Arab Bank,” he added.

Insurers Aljazira Takaful Taawuni and Solidarity Saudi Takaful rose 3.1 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively, after they signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate their merger in a share swap deal. 

Maaden was the top decliner, falling 1.4 percent to SAR 48.70.

Write to Parag Deulgaonkar at parag.d@argaamplus.com