MBC Group buys stake in Anghami

• Music company based in Abu Dhabi
• Saudi media giant buys 4m shares
• Share price up 80%

Shares of the Abu-Dhabi-based music streaming company Anghami rose by more than 80 percent this week after the release of a regulatory filing revealed that Saudi media company MBC Group has acquired a 14 percent stake.

MBC Group, through its arm MBC Ventures, purchased four million ordinary shares of the Nasdaq-listed company.

The purchase was revealed in a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated February 20.

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The value of Anghami shares rose to $1.81 before the close of trading on March 21, compared to the previous value of $1 on March 19. Financial terms of the investment remained undisclosed.

However, calculating Anghami’s per-share stock price from February – which was slightly under $1 – the investment can be worth $4 million.

MBC Group is a state-owned media conglomerate in Saudi Arabia which owns free-to-air TV channels, radio stations and studios.

The media group went public on the Saudi Exchange in January 2024.

• Anghami bets on Arabic music to deliver streaming growth
• Rising music streaming propels region’s artists into spotlight
• MBC raises $390m with oversubscribed IPO

Anghami, established in 2012 by entrepreneurs Eddy Maroun and Elie Habib in Lebanon, had by the third quarter of 2023 a subscriber base of almost two million users across the Mena region.

The partnership with MBC Group provides Anghami with several advantages. 

The media group has a well-established distribution network across the region which could expand Anghami’s reach and user base. 

For MBC Group, the investment will expand its foothold in the media streaming market and allow it to tap into Anghami’s younger user demographic and potentially use the platform for promoting its own content libraries.

Last year Middle East streaming service OSN said it will invest $50 million in Anghami as part of a deal to merge the two companies.

Kuwait’s Kipco-Panther Media Group, which operates as OSN, will combine its streaming service OSN+ with Anghami’s music and entertainment business to create one of the Middle East’s largest streaming platforms.