A companion piece to Episode 23 of the BMD marketing case-study series, the eighth episode of the Gulf run and the first one whose subject is a listed company, which means the scoreboard is audited and it keeps updating after the story ends. The headline is that a Saudi beauty platform's offering was 139 times covered and the shares hit their limit on day one. The same offering carried a second multiple, on the same shares in the same week, and it was 7.9.
Contents
One hundred and thirty-nine times, and the number printed beside it
In December 2024 the institutional book for Nice One's initial public offering closed at about 169 billion riyals of orders against an offering of 1.21 billion, which is coverage of 139.4 times. The company listed on the Saudi Exchange on 8 January 2025 at 35 riyals a share and rose 30 per cent on the first day, which is the maximum the market allows. It was described as the first technology company of its kind to debut on the main market, and the demand was reported as a verdict on the brand.
Every figure in that paragraph is correct. The order book was real, the coverage was real, and the debut was real.
There is a second multiple in the same offering, printed in the same announcements, and almost nobody quotes it. The retail tranche, which was 10 per cent of the same shares at the same price in the same weeks, was covered 7.9 times, on 908 million riyals of applications from 418,120 people. Same company, same price, same product, and the two numbers are seventeen times apart.
They differ because they are ratios whose denominators differ, and because an institutional order and a retail application are different substances. That is the whole episode, and it travels a long way past the Tadawul: whenever a number is offered as proof of demand, find out what was divided by what.
The rest of it is the part only a listed company can give you. Twenty months later the shares traded at about 11.50 riyals, and the market capitalisation had fallen from about 5.26 billion riyals on listing day to roughly 1.33 billion. The revenue that grew 28 per cent in the year of the offering grew 1.3 per cent in the year after it.
What Nice One actually built, and it is a real company
This comes first, because the argument that follows is about a number rather than about the business, and the business deserves the distinction drawn clearly.
Nice One was founded in 2017 and sells beauty and personal care online in Saudi Arabia. By the time it listed it carried more than 28,000 products from about 1,200 local and international brands, reported more than 1.4 million customers, and took about 95 per cent of its sales through its own mobile app rather than a web storefront. In a market whose leaders are mostly marketplaces or foreign entrants, it built a first-party Saudi platform in a category the generalists treat as one aisle.
It grew, and it earned money while growing. Revenue was 782.4 million riyals in 2023 with net income of 32.6 million. Through the first nine months of 2024 revenue rose about 36 per cent year on year and net profit reached 65.9 million riyals, more than double the same period the year before. The full year closed at about one billion riyals of revenue, up 28.27 per cent, with net profit of 71.7 million, up about 120 per cent. That is a company that was profitable before anybody offered it money.
It also did the unglamorous half. There was no famous venture round behind it and no sovereign fund on the cap table that anyone advertised. It reached the exchange on its own trading history, and when it listed it was described as the first unicorn technology company to debut on the main market. The arithmetic behind that description is the offer price itself, which is the part this episode examines.
So nothing here says Nice One is a bad company or that the people who built it did badly. It says that the most quoted number about it measures something other than what the sentence around it claims.
The decision: sell 30 per cent, and keep most of the proceeds personal
The structure of the offering is public, and it settles more than it looks like it settles.
Nice One offered 34.65 million shares, which is 30 per cent of its capital after the offering, at 35 riyals each, for gross proceeds of 1,212.75 million riyals, about 323 million dollars. The implied market capitalisation at the offer price was about 4.04 billion riyals, a little over a billion dollars, and that number is where the unicorn label came from.
The 30 per cent splits two ways, and the split is the part worth reading. About 25.24 percentage points of it were existing shares sold by existing shareholders, and about 4.76 points were new shares issued by the company. Selling existing shares moves money from a buyer to a seller. Issuing new shares moves money into the business.
Run that split across the proceeds and roughly 84 per cent of the 1.21 billion riyals, about 1.02 billion, went to the people who already owned the company, and roughly 192 million riyals went to the company itself. The sentence everybody repeats is that Nice One raised about 320 million dollars. About 51 million dollars of it reached the balance sheet.
None of this is hidden and none of it is improper. Founders selling down at listing is ordinary, it is disclosed in the prospectus, and it is often the reason a listing happens at all. It matters here only because the story attached to the offering was about demand for a brand, while the offering itself was mostly a change of owner rather than a fundraising for a plan.
The four numbers, and what each one counts
Four figures carry this story, and each answers a different question from the one it gets used to answer.
First, the 139.4 times. That is the institutional book, about 169 billion riyals of orders, divided by the size of the whole offering, 1.21 billion riyals. It is a coverage ratio and its denominator is the number of shares the sellers chose to sell. An institutional order is an indication of interest at a price, submitted in the knowledge that it will be scaled back, which is exactly why books inflate in markets where allocations are tight: a fund that wants ten million riyals of stock asks for a hundred million because it expects to receive a tenth.
Second, the 7.9 times. That is the retail tranche, 908 million riyals of applications from 418,120 individual investors against 10 per cent of the same offering, taken on 24 and 25 December 2024. Retail money in a Saudi offering is real money in a real account, and the minimum allocation came out at eight shares a person. Same asset, same price, same week, and the multiple falls by a factor of seventeen the moment the bidder has to fund the bid.
Third, the 30 per cent on the first day. That is the daily price limit on the Saudi Exchange, so it is not a measurement of anything. It is the largest number the market was permitted to print, and a stock that would have opened far higher and a stock that would have opened at exactly that level produce the identical headline. The shares were up about 55 per cent by the end of the first week, which is a real reading, and it is a reading taken on a week.
Fourth, the valuation. At 35 riyals the company was priced at about 4.04 billion riyals against a last audited full year, 2023, of 32.6 million riyals of net income. That is roughly 124 times earnings, or about 46 times the 2024 run rate implied by the nine months published in the prospectus. Those are prices, and the point of a listing is that the market gets to revise them in public.
The scoreboard
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| The headline | Nice One's institutional book was covered 139.4 times, on orders of about 169 billion riyals, roughly 45 billion dollars, against an offering of 1,212.75 million riyals |
| The second multiple | The retail tranche, 10 per cent of the same offering at the same price, was covered 7.9 times on 908 million riyals of applications from 418,120 individual investors, with a minimum allocation of eight shares each |
| The offering | 34.65 million shares, 30 per cent of capital after the offering, at 35 riyals, raising 1,212.75 million riyals, about 323 million dollars, implying a market capitalisation of about 4.04 billion riyals, a little over one billion dollars |
| Who sold what | About 25.24 percentage points of the 30 per cent were existing shares sold by existing shareholders and about 4.76 points were newly issued shares, so on that split roughly 1.02 billion riyals went to selling shareholders and roughly 192 million riyals to the company |
| The dates | Institutional book-building 1 to 8 December 2024, retail subscription 24 to 25 December 2024, listing on the Saudi Exchange on 8 January 2025 under the symbol 4193 |
| Day one | Up 30 per cent, which is the daily limit on the Saudi Exchange, and up about 55 per cent by the end of the first week |
| Revenue before the listing | 782.4 million riyals in 2023 with net income of 32.6 million. Revenue up about 36 per cent over the first nine months of 2024 with net profit of 65.9 million riyals, of which 25.8 million came in the third quarter |
| The year of the listing | Full-year 2024 revenue of about one billion riyals, up 28.27 per cent, with net profit of 71.7 million riyals, up about 120 per cent. That leaves 5.9 million riyals of net profit in the fourth quarter, the quarter in which the offering was taken |
| The year after | 2025 revenue of 1.02 billion riyals, up 1.31 per cent, with net profit of 2.98 million riyals against 71.7 million, a fall of about 96 per cent. Operating profit fell from about 79 million riyals to about 10 million and the net margin from about 7.1 per cent to 0.3 per cent |
| The year after that | Net profit of 8.65 million riyals in the first quarter of 2026 against 24.12 million a year earlier. Second-quarter revenue of 188.3 million riyals, down about 2 per cent, with revenue for the twelve months to June 2026 of 983.6 million riyals, below the 2024 figure |
| The share price | About 11.50 riyals in April 2026 against an offer price of 35, in a 52-week range of 11.43 to 40.35 |
| The market capitalisation | About 1.33 billion riyals in September 2026 against about 5.26 billion riyals on listing day, a fall of roughly three quarters |
| The control group | Almoosa Health's institutional book in December 2024 was about 173 billion riyals and was covered 103 times, because it raised about 1.69 billion riyals at 127 riyals a share. Its retail tranche was covered about four times by 395,986 subscribers |
| The market around it | 22 offerings on the Saudi Exchange in 2024 raising about 8.2 billion dollars and 28 in 2025 raising about 9.6 billion, with heavy oversubscription the norm. Dar Albalad was covered 66.6 times institutionally in 2026 with a retail tranche 376 per cent subscribed |
| The sector and the index | Saudi specialty retail down about 19 per cent and the wider Saudi market down about 8 per cent over the year to the same reading, so part of the share price decline is not company specific |
| The missing number | The repeat purchase rate by cohort, and the share of a year's revenue coming from customers who first bought more than twelve months earlier, alongside the cost of acquiring a customer. Orders and customer totals are published. Neither of these has ever been |
The figures in this table come from three kinds of source and they do not carry equal weight. The offering mechanics, the dates, the coverage ratios and the subscriber counts are from the company's own announcements and the exchange's records at the time, carried through the Saudi and regional financial press. The results are audited and filed, which is what makes this episode different from the seven Gulf cases before it, and the quarterly figures are the company's own disclosures. The share price, the market capitalisation and the trailing twelve-month revenue are market data read on the dates stated and they will have moved by the time you read this, which is why they are quoted with dates. The split of proceeds between selling shareholders and the company is arithmetic applied to the disclosed 25.24 and 4.76 percentage point split rather than a figure either party has published in that form. The sector and index comparisons are third-party readings over a trailing year. Several domains carrying these numbers are blocked by the egress proxy used to research this piece, among them argaam.com, stockanalysis.com, agbi.com and saudigazette.com.sa, so the figures attributed to them were confirmed through consistent search results quoting them and through a second outlet reporting the same number, rather than by opening the documents directly. None of those should be read as primary-sourced.
The autopsy: a coverage ratio measures how little was for sale
The cleanest way to show what an oversubscription multiple measures is to put it next to another one from the same market in the same month, which is unusually easy here because the Saudi listing calendar was busy.
Almoosa Health closed its institutional book in December 2024, a few weeks before Nice One listed. Its order book was about 173 billion riyals, which is larger than Nice One's 169 billion. Its coverage was 103 times, which is smaller than Nice One's 139. More money chased Almoosa and produced a lower multiple, because Almoosa sold more shares: it raised about 1.69 billion riyals against Nice One's 1.21 billion. Divide 173 by 1.69 and you get about 102. Divide 169 by 1.21 and you get about 139.
So the difference between the two headline numbers is not appetite. It is the size of the float. A company that sells less of itself will always post a bigger multiple on the same demand, and the figure quoted as a verdict on the brand is in fact a verdict on the quantity of shares the sellers decided to part with.
Then there is what the multiple could not see. The book was built between 1 and 8 December 2024 and the retail tranche was taken on 24 and 25 December. The quarter being lived while that happened, the fourth of 2024, produced net profit of 5.9 million riyals. The third quarter had produced 25.8 million. The deceleration had already started inside the company while the order book was 139 times covered outside it, and it became visible only when the full-year results were published after the listing.
What followed is on the tape. Revenue in 2025 was 1.02 billion riyals, up 1.31 per cent, after a year that had grown 28.27 per cent. Net profit was 2.98 million riyals against 71.7 million, a fall of about 96 per cent, with the net margin going from roughly 7.1 per cent to 0.3 per cent, and operating profit from about 79 million riyals to about 10 million. In the first quarter of 2026 net profit was 8.65 million riyals against 24.12 million a year earlier. Revenue for the twelve months to June 2026 was 983.6 million riyals, which is below the 2024 figure. The shares were about 11.50 riyals in April 2026 and the market capitalisation was around 1.33 billion riyals in September 2026, against about 5.26 billion on listing day.
Set those two things beside each other and the finding is not that the company failed, because it has not. It is that the most enthusiastic demand measurement in the recent history of this market was recorded in the exact weeks the business underneath it stopped growing, and there is no version of an order book that could have registered that. A coverage ratio is a statement about supply. It carries no information about the product.
The control group: everything else was oversubscribed too
This series has a standing rule about famous tactics, which is that when something has been widely copied the copies are the control group and they are free. The Saudi listing calendar in this window is the copies.
The Saudi Exchange hosted 22 initial public offerings in 2024 raising about 8.2 billion dollars, and 28 in 2025 raising about 9.6 billion. Heavy oversubscription was the norm across them rather than the exception, which is what a market with more savings than listings looks like. Almoosa Health was covered 103 times institutionally and about four times on its retail tranche, by 395,986 subscribers. Dar Albalad, more than a year later in 2026, was covered 66.6 times institutionally with a retail tranche 376 per cent subscribed. Different sectors, different sizes, different stories, all heavily covered.
If nearly every offering in a market is covered many times over, the multiple is telling you about the market and not about the company inside it. The season plan's angle for this episode was that a focused niche brand can out-demand the generalists. The order book cannot support that claim, because the generalists were not in the comparison and everything else on the calendar was oversubscribed as well.
The place where the claim could be tested is customer demand, and there the answer is on record. Revenue growth went from 28.27 per cent in 2024 to 1.31 per cent in 2025 to a decline over the twelve months to June 2026, in a Saudi beauty and personal care market that kept growing, against Amazon and noon and Sephora and Golden Scent and Faces, all of whom sell the same brands to the same people. The niche did not out-demand the generalists in the place where demand is counted, which is orders.
One honest qualification, because this series asks for it whenever the qualification helps the argument. Nice One's shares did not fall in a rising market. Saudi specialty retail was down about 19 per cent over the year to the same reading and the wider Saudi market was down about 8 per cent, so part of the decline is sector and index rather than company. Most of it is still the company's, and the earnings are entirely the company's.
The right order: name the denominator before you quote the ratio
The portable version of this is a habit rather than a framework, and it costs about a minute per number.
First, when a ratio is offered as evidence, write the division out and say what the denominator is. Covered 139 times means orders divided by the shares the sellers chose to sell. Ten applicants a place means applications divided by the places you decided to open. A waiting list of 50,000 means people who typed an email address divided by nothing at all. The sentence gets less exciting and more useful, and about a third of the time the denominator turns out to be a decision your own company made rather than a fact about the market.
Second, separate demand for an allocation from demand for a product. Anything scarce and free to apply for will be oversubscribed: a pre-order list, a beta, a limited drop, a franchise call, a ticket ballot. The tell is whether the applicant had to part with money that is actually debited, and the honest measure of product demand is the second purchase rather than the first application. If your evidence is all first applications, what you have measured is your own scarcity.
Third, ask who received the money and what it is for. In an offering, in a funding round, in the sale of a franchise territory, the same headline covers a cash-out and a capitalisation, and the split is usually disclosed somewhere unglamorous. Where the proceeds went decides whether the transaction is evidence about the future or about the past.
For a Saudi company the local version comes up constantly and rarely gets challenged in the room. A restaurant group opens applications for 40 franchise units, receives 5,000 enquiries, and the board paper says demand is 125 times supply. A clinic opens a waiting list for a new branch and reports it full in a day. A brand drops a limited run and sells out in four minutes. Every one of those numbers has a denominator the company itself chose, and every one of them is compatible with a business whose repeat purchase rate is falling. The discipline is to publish the ratio and its denominator in the same sentence, internally, every time, so that nobody on the executive team ever gets to treat scarcity as proof of demand.
The takeaways
The 139.4 times is orders divided by the size of the offering, so its denominator is a decision the sellers made. About 169 billion riyals of institutional orders against an offering of 1.21 billion riyals is a statement about how little was for sale as much as about how much was wanted.
The same offering printed a second multiple and it was 7.9. The retail tranche, 10 per cent of the same shares at the same price in the same weeks, drew 908 million riyals from 418,120 investors. The multiple falls seventeenfold once the bidder has to fund the bid, and that tranche is the one most like an ordinary customer.
A larger book produced a smaller multiple one month earlier. Almoosa Health's institutional book was about 173 billion riyals against Nice One's 169 billion, and its coverage was 103 times against 139, because it sold about 1.69 billion riyals of shares against Nice One's 1.21 billion.
Most of the money did not go to the company. About 25.24 points of the 30 per cent offered were existing shares and about 4.76 points were new, so roughly 1.02 billion riyals went to selling shareholders and roughly 192 million riyals to the business.
The book was built in the quarter the growth stopped. Net profit was 25.8 million riyals in the third quarter of 2024 and 5.9 million in the fourth, which is the quarter that ran while the offering was being taken. Full-year 2025 then grew revenue 1.31 per cent and earned 2.98 million riyals of net profit against 71.7 million.
Say what worked, because the company is real. Nice One was built from 2017 into the Kingdom's largest beauty and care platform, about a billion riyals of revenue, more than 1.4 million customers, some 28,000 products from about 1,200 brands, roughly 95 per cent of sales through its own app, and profitable in every year of this story.
Frequently asked questions
Was Nice One's IPO really 139 times oversubscribed?
Yes, and the number is the institutional book. Orders of about 169 billion riyals, roughly 45 billion dollars, were placed against an offering of 1,212.75 million riyals, which is coverage of 139.4 times. Two things are worth holding next to it. The denominator is the size of the offering, so a company selling fewer shares posts a larger multiple on identical demand. And an institutional order is an indication at a price, submitted in the expectation of being scaled back, so books inflate in exactly the markets where allocations are tight.
What does the 7.9 times figure mean, and why does nobody quote it?
It is the retail tranche of the same offering, 10 per cent of the same shares at the same price on 24 and 25 December 2024. It drew 908 million riyals of applications from 418,120 individual investors, which is coverage of 7.9 times, and the minimum allocation worked out at eight shares a person. It gets quoted less because it is smaller and less dramatic. It is arguably the more informative of the two, because a retail application is funded rather than indicated, and the people making it are closer to being customers than any institution in the book.
How much of the 320 million dollars actually went to the company?
On the disclosed split, a minority of it. The 30 per cent offered was about 25.24 percentage points of existing shares sold by existing shareholders and about 4.76 points of newly issued shares. Applying that split to gross proceeds of 1,212.75 million riyals puts roughly 1.02 billion riyals with the selling shareholders and roughly 192 million riyals, about 51 million dollars, with the company. That is normal and it was disclosed. It matters because a transaction that is mostly a change of owner is evidence about the past, and the story told around this one was about the future.
What has the share done since it listed?
It rose 30 per cent on debut, which is the daily limit on the Saudi Exchange, and about 55 per cent within the first week. Then it fell. By April 2026 it traded around 11.50 riyals against the 35 riyal offer price, in a 52-week range of 11.43 to 40.35, and the market capitalisation was around 1.33 billion riyals in September 2026 against about 5.26 billion on listing day. Some of that is the market, since Saudi specialty retail was down about 19 per cent and the index about 8 per cent over a comparable window, and most of it is not.
Did the business fail?
No, and saying so would be the same error this episode is about, pointed the other way. Nice One turned over about a billion riyals in 2025, sells some 28,000 products from about 1,200 brands, takes roughly 95 per cent of its sales through its own app, has more than 1.4 million customers, and has been profitable throughout. What happened is that growth stopped and the margin went with it: revenue up 1.31 per cent in 2025 after 28.27 per cent in 2024, net profit of 2.98 million riyals against 71.7 million, and a small decline over the twelve months to June 2026. A listed company has to show you that. A private one would still be quoting the order book.
What should a mid-sized Saudi company take from this?
Write the denominator into the sentence, every time, before the number leaves the building. If applications are 125 times the franchise units you opened, say that you opened 40 units. If the waiting list is 50,000, say what it cost a person to join it, which is usually an email address. Then separate the first application from the second purchase in your reporting, and treat only the second as demand. Scarcity is easy to manufacture and it photographs well. Repeat purchase is neither, which is why it is the number that predicts next year.
This article is part of BMD's marketing case-study series. Episode 23 is the eighth of the Gulf run. Episode 24 closes the season and leaves the Kingdom for Dubai, to an airline that has spent decades repeating a single promise in every market it flies to. That is Emirates.
Sources and further reading
The Saudi Exchange's listing and issuer announcements for Nice One Beauty Digital Marketing Company, symbol 4193, for the offering of 34.65 million shares at 35 riyals, the 30 per cent of capital, the 1,212.75 million riyals of proceeds, the listing on 8 January 2025 and the annual results announcements for 2024 and 2025. The company's prospectus and its investor relations disclosures for the split between existing and newly issued shares, the 2023 revenue of 782.4 million riyals and net income of 32.6 million, the nine-month 2024 figures, and the product, brand and customer counts. Baker McKenzie's and EFG Hermes's transaction announcements for the offer size, the implied market capitalisation and the institutional coverage of 139.4 times on an order book above 169 billion riyals. AGBI, MENAbytes, Mubasher, Sahm Capital, BeautyMatter and Consultancy Middle East for the retail tranche of 908 million riyals from 418,120 investors at 7.9 times, the book-building and retail subscription dates, the 30 per cent debut and the 55 per cent first-week move. Argaam's financial results pages for net profit of 65.9 million riyals over the first nine months of 2024 with 25.8 million in the third quarter, and 71.7 million riyals for the full year. Market data providers for the 2025 revenue of 1.02 billion riyals and net profit of 2.98 million, the first-quarter 2026 net profit of 8.65 million against 24.12 million, the second-quarter revenue of 188.3 million riyals, the trailing twelve-month revenue of 983.6 million to June 2026, the share price of about 11.50 riyals in April 2026 with its 52-week range, and the market capitalisation of about 1.33 billion riyals in September 2026 against 5.26 billion on listing day. AGBI, Gulf News, Zawya and Sahm Capital for Almoosa Health's December 2024 book of about 173 billion riyals at 103 times coverage, its 1.69 billion riyals raised at 127 riyals a share, and its retail tranche of 408.71 per cent from 395,986 subscribers. Arab News and Saudi market reviews for 22 offerings in 2024 raising about 8.2 billion dollars and 28 in 2025 raising about 9.6 billion, and Sahm Capital for Dar Albalad's 66.6 times institutional coverage and 376 per cent retail subscription in 2026. One note on method. The domains argaam.com, stockanalysis.com, agbi.com and saudigazette.com.sa are blocked by the network this piece was researched on, and between them they hold the results pages, the market data and much of the transaction coverage. Every figure attributed to them here was confirmed through search results quoting the page and through a second outlet carrying the same number. None of it was read from the document itself, and anything that turns on a single one of those figures is worth checking against the company's own filings on the Saudi Exchange.
About BMD
Most companies don't have a marketing problem. They have a marketing department that was never built. BMD is a boutique consultancy that installs structured, measurable marketing departments inside mid-market companies across the GCC. We don't run your campaigns, and we don't hand you a strategy deck and leave. We build the operating system: the structure, the measurement, and the ownership that turn marketing into a function leadership can rely on. The method is the BUILD framework, published and practiced: a book, an online program, a community of Gulf founders and marketers applying it, and diagnostics that replace assumptions with measurement. Delivered in Arabic and English, founder-led.
Redha Alayesh
A marketer with a software engineer's discipline and a scientist's mindset. Across 40+ marketing departments in the GCC, he built the BUILD framework to solve the problem he kept finding: capable marketers trapped inside companies that never built them a department.