The first thing that always surprises new potential investors in Saudi Arabia is that, not only is it not all about oil, it is actually very hard to get exposure to oil stocks. Petrochemicals are a different matter, but even then, they’re hardly dominant. “Around 170 companies are listed on the Tadawul, of which only 14 belong to the petrochemical sector,” says Gaurav Shah, CEO of Al Rajhi Capital. “The Tadawul has 15 sector indices, which says much about the diversity of the market.”
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In terms of regional scale, there is plenty outside of resources and petrochems. Al Rajhi and newly-listed NCB are among the biggest banks in the Middle East, Saudi Telecom one of the biggest telcos, and Almarai one of the largest integrated dairy companies in the world, never mind the region. In materials, even if oil is little represented in listed stocks, Maaden has exposure to gold, phosphate and aluminium.
