Retail’s 10% IPO cut is not fixed, inside 90 days

Ninety days is the window Mazen Al-Sudairi put on a reform package for the Saudi market, in his first interview since becoming chairman of the Capital Market Authority board. Speaking to Al Arabiya Business on 4 October 2026, he said the authority has an implementation plan to roll out changes in no more than 90 days. The problems he named: a high number of declining stocks, the quality of some initial public offerings, and weaker retail participation. The aim, he said, is a fairer, more efficient market that looks more like the economy and is easier for foreign money and for citizens to use as a savings venue. That is the punch. This is an interview, not a board resolution. The 30 percent retail line is the part brokers will trade on Monday. Al-Sudairi said the 10 percent retail slice often used in offerings is not a fixed rule, and that the share should in principle rise to 30 percent, with room to differ on large deals. He also said a high subscription cover is not proof of real demand. Some orders in a book are not investment demand. The authority has investigated a number of past offerings and is redrawing duties among advisers, offering managers and issuers, with post-listing performance and value to investors in the test. The trading file is already on a shorter clock than the 90 days. Secondary reports of the same interview say a consultation on algorithmic trading closes on 24 October, with provisions due to apply from 1 November 2026. Al-Sudairi framed the balance as allowing automation without practices that hit stability or investor interests. On short selling he said the tool is useful if it is not used negatively, that there are signs of a harmful effect in some current practice, and that the authority started with the first piece, securities lending, and is writing new controls. Foreign-ownership limits were also in the relayed priorities. None of those limits were given a number in the notes used here. A new chair naming declining names and weak IPO aftermarkets is a break from the listing-count story. Tadawul’s pipeline has been the regional boast. Aftermarket drift, retail left with a tenth of the book, and algo flow the retail book cannot see, are the complaints that do not fit a pipeline slide. Putting advisers and issuers on the hook for the months after listing is how a regulator says coverage ratio was the wrong score. The MENA angle is retail allocation as market design, not as a savings campaign. Abu Dhabi and Dubai still clear books with a thin public tranche. A Saudi chair saying 10 percent is not fixed, and that 30 percent is the base case, is a signal those markets will hear if Riyadh actually writes it. If the 30 percent only lands on small deals and large ones stay institutional, the interview changed a sentence. Caveats: 90 days is a chairman’s clock. The 30 percent is a direction, with an explicit exception for large offerings. Investigations into past IPOs were mentioned, not named. Algo dates come from accounts of the interview, not from a gazette in this note. Declining-stock counts were not published. If the CMA issues the retail rule and the algo controls inside the 90 days, the interview was a timetable. If November passes with another consultation, count the gazette. Watch the first IPO allocation after the speech.