Chairman of Mekdam Holding Group, Sheikh Mohammad bin Nawaf Al Thani (third left) and Director of Qatar Stock Exchange’s Listing Department, Abdulaziz Nasser Al Emadi with other officials during the first trading day of Mekdam at the QSE Venture Market ye
Doha: Mekdam Holding Group (Mekdam) has started trading its shares yesterday as the first technology company to debut on the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) Venture Market (QEVM). Mekdam is also the second company to be listed on the recently launched QEVM, which is dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
Using the direct listing option, the shares of Mekdam have been listed with the symbol “MKDM”. The company’s share price was floated on the first day of trading as it started at QR8.25 and closed at QR8.01 with a volume reaching 5,600,001 shares and with a total value of QR45.50m, which will be allowed to fluctuate by 10 percent up and down starting from the second day of trading of the company’s shares.
Welcoming the listing of Mekdam, CEO of QSE, Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori, said: “The Venture Market provides a listing and trading venue for SMEs that do not fulfil listing requirement of the main market. It provides an alternative route to market for the SMEs who need the access to capital that being listed entails. The listing of Mekdam will help increasing the liquidity in the market and providing new options for the investors”.
He added: “Focusing on awareness campaigns, the QSE exerts intense efforts to increase the number of listed companies, and the listing of Mekdam is hoped to encourage private and family businesses to transfer into public shareholding companies with the aim of listing on the stock exchange”.
Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the event, Chairman of Mekdam, Sheikh Mohammad bin Nawaf Al Thani, said the company, which provides information and communication technology solutions and services, has listed on the QEVM with plans to expand globally.
“We entered the venture market to expand globally and I think this will be a very good tool for us to go to the world and see how we can expand further. This is my first priority, to expand worldwide. At the moment, we already have two countries in mind, but I have to sit with the board and discuss further,” he said.
To date, Mekdam has implemented over QR750m worth of projects and delivered over 400 large and medium scale projects in Qatar in the last three years. The company has also built a customer profile of almost 5,000 users of its Centralized Alarm Monitoring System (CAMS) in Qatar.
“We are planning to implement our technology solultions in several countries as well. We are a tech company, and our aim is to expand in the sector as well as to develop more tech solutions going forward. Technology is really important, and we saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, Mekdam also secured a new contract for all the schools in Qatar in the field of e-learning system,” added Sheikh Mohammad.
He went on to encourage other private and family companies to follow suit in transferring into public shareholding companies being an important step for listing on the QSE.
Director of QSE’s Listing Department, Abdulaziz Nasser Al Emadi, also told The Peninsula during the event that Mekdam is the first tech company now listed on the QSE’s overall market. He expressed confidence that more companies will join the QEVM in the coming period and indicated that the companies eligible to join the QEVM should benefit from rules designed to provide flexibility for mid-size companies and their owners.
“The launch of the new market was a result of the strategic initiatives and intense efforts made by the QSE over the past years to develop Qatar’s capital market through continuous consultations with private and family-owned companies to identify their needs and offer them suitable solutions and incentives for listing in the market,” he said.
Mekdam Holding Group was established in March 2018 as a private company with limited liabilities and authorised and issued capital of QR50m.
It was transferred into a Public Shareholding Company by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry resolution No.45 for the year 2021 issued on June 30, 2021 with a capital 100 percent fully paid by its founders. The QEVM allows SMEs to diversify sources of funding through access to permanent equity in line with the Government efforts to support the private sector in the country. The QEVM follows the same continuous trading pattern as the main market.
The tick sizes for the QEVM Equities is the same as those for the main market, while the stock quotes of the QEVM are shown on a separate market watch at QSE website and independent from the main market screens.
Pricing of Mekdam shares is exactly the same as pricing mechanism of the stocks listed on the main market. Investors do not need to obtain new investor number to trade in Mekdam shares since no new investor numbers (NIN’s) are required to be issued for the investors who have already existing numbers. The orders in the QEVM are executed through the brokers licensed by the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA).
