Saudi Arabia’s private equity deals soar with $2.8bn in investments in 2024.
Saudi Arabia’s private equity market reached $2.8 billion in total investments across 15 transactions in 2024, maintaining its billion-dollar scale despite a slowdown, according to MAGNiTT’s latest report.
This represents a 27 percent year-on-year decrease from $3.9 billion in 2023, signaling a shift in capital allocation amid evolving economic conditions. The number of private equity deals also dropped significantly, falling 60 percent from 37 transactions in the previous year.
This decline follows three consecutive years of growth from 2020 to 2023, during which the market saw a compound annual growth rate of 67 percent. Factors such as higher interest rates, inflationary pressures, oil price fluctuations, and regional geopolitical tensions played a role in the slowdown observed in 2024.
Philip Bahoshy, CEO of MAGNiTT, told Arab News that the Saudi private equity market had experienced “significant growth” between 2020 and 2024, with investment value surging from $215 million in 2020 to a peak of $3.9 billion in 2023.
Despite the overall market contraction, growth-stage private equity transactions emerged as the most active segment, accounting for 67 percent of total deals in 2024, up from 43 percent in the previous year. In contrast, buyout transactions, which dominated in 2023, experienced a sharp 76 percent decline, with their share of total private equity deals dropping from 57 percent to 33 percent.
Source: ARABNEWS
