13 December 2011
The five most valuable newly listed companies in the Middle East and North Africa belong to the Financial Services and Retail sectors and to the Kuwaiti, Syrian, Qatari and Palestinian markets, Zawya research shows.

However, the five lowest ranking companies all belong to the Financial Services sector in the Saudi market.

For many years now, the Middle East and North Africa region has undergone a lot of scrutiny due to its political, financial and economic activity. Investors have shown a great deal of interest in the MENA's financial sector and stock markets due to their great confidence in the latter's potential growth. As a result of this interest, stock markets have experienced an increase in trading activity and the number of listed companies.

The focus of this research is the newly listed companies in the MENA region. We tracked these companies since their listing date and observed the change in stock prices and overall performance through each company's financial and market data. Consequently, we classified each company according to its performance.

We narrowed down our search to 37 companies based on the following criteria:

  • Listed on a MENA stock market.

  • Established between the years 2005 and 2011.

  • Listed between January 1, 2009, and May 31, 2011.

  • Minimum required amount of financial data available.

We used both financial and market performance indicators to monitor each company. We calculated Operating Profit Margin as the financial indicator of the return achieved from the standard operations of the company, and Value Traded/ Market Capital as the market indicator of the company's liquidity. We also considered the price flow of each company starting from the listing date until June 30, 2011, representing market performance and price volatility, and then calculated the percentage change in price.

Each company is accompanied by its profile, a general overview and a summary of the corporate actions which indicate how active it is.

Each ratio is assigned a certain weight according to Zawya's assessment of financial indicators and according to its importance, and classification will be done accordingly. The weights are assigned as follows:

  • Value Traded/ Market Capital (40%)

  • Operating Profit Margin (50%)

  • Percentage change in price (10%)

Access the full report here.

Marwa Farrukh, Sandra El Gemayel and Wissam Keyrouz are Market Analysts at Zawya.

© Zawya 2011