Boutiqaat IPO marks Goldman's deeper push into Kuwait

Published: 2026-06-03T12:23:00.000Z

Wall Street keeps finding its way to the Gulf, and Goldman Sachs has lined up its next move. The bank is working on a potential listing for Boutiqaat, a Kuwaiti online beauty retailer, in what would be its first IPO mandate in the country, possibly as early as next year.

Wall Street's biggest names keep finding their way to the Gulf, and Goldman Sachs has just lined up its next move in one of the region's smaller but wealthier markets. The bank is working on a potential public listing for Boutiqaat, a Kuwaiti online beauty and fashion retailer, in what would mark its first IPO mandate in the country. According to reporting on the plans, the offering could come as early as the first quarter of next year, though the timing could still shift as the work progresses. Boutiqaat is an interesting candidate for a listing because of how it is built. Founded in 2015 by Abdulwahab Alessa, the company runs a social commerce platform where influencers set up their own virtual storefronts, stocking them with products they personally recommend. Shoppers browse those curated selections and buy directly, while Boutiqaat handles the actual transaction and logistics behind the scenes. The catalog runs to more than 25,000 beauty and fashion items from over 700 international brands, and the platform serves customers across the wider Gulf region including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. It started out focused on women before adding men's fashion. The valuation question is where the story gets a little fuzzy. Boutiqaat was valued at around $250 million back in 2018 when Boubyan Petrochemical put in $45 million, and that figure later doubled to roughly $500 million. More recently the company has been associated with a target somewhere between $700 million and $1 billion, which it explored alongside options like a partial sale. A successful listing near the top of that range would cement its standing as one of Kuwait's more valuable consumer technology names, though public investors will ultimately set the price. For Goldman, the deal is less about a single fee and more about staking out territory. The bank has been pushing aggressively across the Gulf, opening an office in Kuwait, securing a regional base in Saudi Arabia, and chasing large mandates from sovereign players like the Kuwait Investment Authority. Adding a homegrown IPO to that effort signals it wants to be the adviser of choice as regional companies come to market. The wider backdrop is a genuine boom in Gulf listings. Stock exchanges across the region have become unusually active, with governments encouraging companies to go public as part of broader efforts to deepen capital markets and diversify their economies away from oil. Goldman is also reportedly involved in a possible $1 billion listing for the Saudi delivery app Ninja, which speaks to how consumer technology platforms in the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly being treated as serious public market assets rather than niche bets. A Boutiqaat float would fit neatly into that shift.