Tadawul gets first dual listing as Americana debuts today

The concurrent and dual listing in Saudi Arabia and the UAE is the first for Tadawul, which earlier accepted only Saudi companies.

The daily price fluctuation limits will not apply to the company's shares during the first three days of listing, while the +/- 10% static price fluctuation limits will apply.   

From the fourth trading day onwards, the daily price fluctuation limits of -/+ 10% will apply, while static price fluctuation limits will not.

The static price fluctuation limit is applied once the price of a security reaches 10% upwards or downwards. Once +/- 10% is reached, a volatility auction is triggered, and a new static limit is set based on the volatility auction reference price. 

Last year witnessed nine listings, including Alkhorayef Water and Power Technologies Co. on March 1, Theeb Rent a Car Co. (March 29), Tanmiah Food Co. (Aug. 4), solutions (Sept. 30), International Company for Power and Water Projects (ACWA Power) (Oct. 11), Arabian Contracting Services Co. (Al Arabia) (Nov. 15), Nayifat Finance Co. (Nov. 22), Saudi Tadawul Group (Dec. 8), and Almunajem Foods Co. (Dec. 20).

Americana’s listing will bring the total number of Tadawul-listed companies to 203, excluding 17 REITs.

The company floated 30%, or 2.527 billion shares, of its capital in a dual IPO on Tadawul and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), according to data available with Argaam.

The offering was divided into three tranches, one of which was for UAE retail investors at 5%, while the institutional investors and Saudi retail investors were allocated 85% and 10% of the total offering, respectively.

The company later decided to raise the UAE retail tranche limit to 10% of the total offering and cut Saudi institutional tranche to 80%.

The final offer price was set at AED 2.62 per share in the UAE and SAR 2.68 per share in Saudi Arabia, the top of range in both countries.

Americana said the book-building process attracted orders worth nearly AED 386 billion/SAR 394 billion from qualified institutional investors in a number of countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia (qualified institutional tranche), individuals and other investors in the UAE and Saudi Arabia (retail investor tranches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia). The book-building process was nearly 58x covered.

The number of shares allocated to UAE and Saudi retail investors is a minimum of 1,000 and 892, respectively.

Overview of Americana Restaurants  

The company was founded in 1964 in Kuwait and began with its “Wimpy” brand operations in 1970, then KFC in 1973.

From 1964 to 2016, the group diversified franchise partnerships to include Pizza Hut in 1979, Hardee's in 1980, TGIF in 1994, and Krispy Kreme in 2006.

The group during the same period also expanded its operations to include the opening of restaurants in the UAE in 1979, Saudi Arabia in 1980, Morocco in 2001 and Kazakhstan in 2008. As recently as 2022, the group added Peet's Coffee to its brand portfolio.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Mohammed Alabbar acquired a majority stake in the former parent company through their joint investment subsidiary, Adeptio AD Holdings Ltd. in 2016.

This acquisition was followed by the mandatory offering, increasing Adeptio’s actual ownership in the former parent company to 96% (including treasury shares), while the remaining 4% still belongs to 180 minority shareholders. As a result, the former parent company on April 23, 2018, voluntarily cancelled its listing on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE).

Brands and Restaurants

The group is distinguished by being a franchisee of the following brands in the Middle East and Kazakhstan: KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee's, Krispy Kreme, TGI Friday's, Costa Coffee, Peet's Coffee and Baskin-Robbins.

The group deems KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee's and Krispy Kreme as its main brands, as they constituted 92.4% and 92.9% of the group's revenues in 2021 and H1 2022, respectively. Americana also owns two private brands, namely Wimpy and Chicken Tikka.

Further, the group continued to expand its restaurant network until June 30, 2022, despite the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, operating 2,050 restaurants.

The group aims to enhance revenue growth and record strong profitability in the medium term through four main strategic levers; growth in restaurant portfolio, revenue growth, margin expansion and platform expansion.

Americana is the leading out-of-home dining (OOHD) and quick service restaurant (QSR) operator in a $56 billion total OOHD market. It operates across 12 markets in the MENA region and Kazakhstan.

The company has the largest OOHD market share in the countries where it operates. It expanded its market share to 3.2% in 2020 and 3.6% in 2021.

Americana also holds the largest share in QSR, growing from 7.6% in 2019 to 9.3% in 2021.

Adeptio AD Investments LTD is the company’s major shareholders after the IPO with a stake of 66.03%.

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