RIYADH: The CEO of Saudi Arabia’s Nahdi Medical Co. is very ambitious about the future of the firm that operates a large pharmacy chain for four decades.
Speaking to Arab News on the morning of its debut on the Kingdom’s stock exchange Tadawul, Yasser Joharji said he wants the firm to become a multinational operator now that it is the largest listing since oil giant Aramco went public in 2019.
Nahdi had a market value as high as SR19.5 billion ($5.2 billion) after its shares soared 14.5 percent in Tuesday trading, with the stock closing at SR150.
“We plan to be a multinational company but we will do that slowly,” Joharji said.
Yasser Joharji
The Jeddah-based giant pharma retailer operates over 1,150 pharmacies across the Kingdom and a rising number in the UAE. Joharji said they will expand into other markets in due course.
The firm serves 97 percent of the population in the Kingdom in more than 144 cities, but it only controls 10 percent of the market.
“I know that a lot of people think it’s more than that, but it’s 10 percent. It gives us a throughput,” he added.
Nahdi had raised $1.36 billion from its IPO, slightly higher than the $1.2 billion sold by ACWA Power a year earlier.
The company is very efficient when it comes to cash generation as it has a “light model,” he said, with its Capex around 2.5 percent of revenues.
“We don’t see that as changing in the future because that is sufficient for our needs and for our light model,” he concluded.