A drizzle of three initial public offerings on the Saudi Stock Exchange in October added some $52 million — small change in the world of IPOs — to this year’s regional primary markets. Slow but measurable progress in the region’s IPO market has pushed the total new equity raised in the region’s capital markets in the first nine months of 2009 to nearly $2.5 billion, according to the Regional Press Network, representing an 83 percent drop from the same period in 2008. This quarter’s activity is a far cry from the heated IPO activity of a few years ago but a notable improvement from record lows in the first quarter of 2009. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Gulf Cooperation Council witnessed two IPOs in the third quarter, raising $728 million, compared to six new listings in the three months to June 2009, which raised $1.12 billion. However, investors and analysts expect
