Stock News: Sheikh Abdullatif Alshelash’s Saudi Home Loans Performance Kicked Off With Strong IPO

Sheikh Abdullatif Al Shelash is on the board of directors for Saudi Home Loans, which snagged a whopping $423 million in its IPO on the Saudi Stock Exchange.

In Q1 of this year, Saudi Home Loans generated SAR 32.35 million (about $8.62 million) in net profit after zakat, a form of almsgiving, and tax, up 9.79% from SAR 29.47 million in Q1-21, according to news site zawya.com. On May 31, Saudi Home Loans released a statement indicating a cash dividend distribution of SAR 0.77 per share for 2021. Saudi Home Loans will pay out a total of SAR 77.40 million, representing 7.74% of the capital, for 100 million eligible shares, according to news.writecaliber.com. Although Saudi Home Loans’ stocks are down, it’s still outpacing competitors.

Saudi Home Loans is one of the brands in the field of Islamic finance, serving the Saudi market with its housing needs. According to arabianbusiness.com, Abdullatif Al Shelash said Saudi Home Loans was the first of its kind to follow an Islamic housing finance system and would serve middle-income households as well as less affluent segments of the Saudi community. In 2007, when Saudi Home Loans launched, Abdullatif Al Shelash told Arabian Business, “Our objective will be to promote home ownership by offering hassle-free home loans.”

When Saudi Home Loans began, only 22% of Saudis could call themselves homeowners, with the majority of people renting in the region. According to Al Arabiya news channel, as of 2020, about 60% of Saudis owned homes and by the end of 2030, 70% of Saudis are projected to own homes.

Abdullatif Al Shelash says he’s always been passionate about helping Saudis realize the dream of home ownership.

“This is a company that was the first company established in Saudi to assist Saudi nationals in buying their home on a mortgage,” Abdullatif Al Shelash says. “It was one of the very first mortgage companies to be established in Saudi Arabia. I was a founding member and I am still a board member.”

In 2007, Home Loans in Saudi Arabia Were Hard to Come By

Abdullatif Al Shelash helped usher in a new era with the revolutionary concept of Saudi Home Loans. A true pioneer in the industry, Abdullatif Al Shelash has helped foster Sharia-compliant solutions to obtain mortgages in Saudi Arabia. The Purdue University graduate says he has a knack for leadership, majoring in facility leadership and supervision at the Indiana university in 2000.

In the new paradigm, Dar Al Arkan, where Abdullatif Al Shelash previously served as the managing director of the board of directors, was providing the apartment or villa, and Saudi Home Loans was providing the financing. Abdullatif Al Shelash says he was also a key player in bringing the International Finance Corporation to Saudi Home Loans and having the IFC support loans and home ownership in Saudi.

Commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE reports that Saudi Arabia’s GDP is estimated to have expanded by 2.9% in 2021 and it’s speculated to grow by 6.2% this year. However, residential transaction volumes in Saudi Arabia decreased by 23.4% in Q1 2022, compared to a year earlier, where the total value of transactions also fell marginally by 1.9%.

According to its website, Saudi Home Loans provides crucial, strategic support through its shareholders and business partners in the financial and real estate sectors. With an annual growth rate of 40% of net profits in recent years, it’s become one of the most profitable companies among nonbanking real estate finance companies. The website also emphasizes how the company is accommodating the evolving needs of the Saudi real estate market while providing a substantial housing finance portfolio and keeping an eye on the future.

Making Saudi Arabian Home Ownership More Accessible

The accessible financing options available through Abdullatif Al Shelash’s Saudi Home Loans are helping lower and middle-class Saudi Arabians get a leg up by investing in real estate in the kingdom.

“We were the first among the companies to promote home finance because the culture here was [that] I would save to have the full price of my house or I would save to buy a land and then I will save to build a house on that land,” Abdullatif Al Shelash explains.

That forced many cash-strapped Saudi Arabians, especially young families, to live with relatives. Today, he says, those couples are able to leave the nest and move into their first homes.

“We came in with a totally different concept. You don't need to do that. We can give you a mortgage over 15, 20, or 25 years, and you can actually go and live in your home today.”

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