Two former London Stock Exchange (LSE) executives, including former CEO Xavier Rolet, have been named as board members for the Saudi Stock Exchange.
The trading venue, also known as Tadawul, announced its new board members for the next three years and included Rolet and his former colleague Mark Makepeace in the line-up.
Makepeace was best known as the founder of FTSE, and up until January 2019, operated as director of the Information Services Division at the LSE.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Makepeace has not taken a full-time position since leaving the LSE.
Rolet departed the LSE in December 2018, leaving behind an impressive legacy after taking LSE’s market capitalisation from £800 million to almost £14 billion at the time of departure.
Rolet’s current position is the CEO of credit-focused multi-strategy fund manager CQS, a role he took up at the start of 2019.
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed a buoyant few years in terms of its growth and appeal to foreign investment.
The Capital Market Authority (CMA), the Saudi Arabian regulator, began liberalising the market in June 2015, before further measures were introduced in the first half of 2017.
The market’s inclusion in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index last year was also a major milestone in encouraging foreign investment.
To achieve such inclusion, the Kingdom has made a number of improvements to its capital markets, including passing rules easing foreign institutional investment, increasing the number of qualified foreign investors, and moving to a T+2 settlement cycle.
According to MSCI at the time of the announcement, “International investors were impressed by the speed of change in the accessibility of the Saudi Arabian equity market and the level of commitment that the CMA and the Saudi Stock Exchange have demonstrated.”
Last October, Tadawul announced it would begin allowing foreign companies to list on the exchange.