The Saudi “Miyahana” Company obtained a non-objection from the General Authority for Competition regarding its acquisition of all ownership shares in the “Shas Water Services Company Limited”, including the shares owned in its subsidiaries, in the latest developments in the sale and purchase agreement signed between the two parties.
According to data from the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), “Miyahuna” had signed, last June, an agreement to acquire “Shas Water Services”, with a current value of 95 million riyals ($20.3 million), with the possibility of increasing it to a maximum of 102.7 million riyals ($27.3 million), according to achieving specific financial targets linked to the results of the target company’s audited annual financial statements for the year 2025.
Shas Water Services, which was established in 1998, owns and operates water facilities in the city of Riyadh, in addition to providing water distribution services through networked and non-networked infrastructure.
The deal aims to support Miyahuna's strategy to expand its water distribution business in the city of Riyadh and serve customers in the commercial, residential and industrial sectors, in addition to enhancing its presence in water services within industrial cities.
The company had clarified that completing the deal is subject to obtaining the relevant regulatory approvals, while the acquisition will be financed through its own sources and available financing facilities.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company will not go public during the current year, attributing this to growing concerns regarding the safety of artificial intelligence.
Altman said, in an interview with Fortune magazine published on Saturday, that going public with the company “at the present time would be an inappropriate decision” in light of what is happening in terms of the safety of artificial intelligence, adding that the company does not feel pressured to do so.
When asked if an IPO was out of the company's calculations for 2026, Altman replied: "I would say yes, not in 2026. We have a lot of things to do."
OpenAI has not announced an official date for offering its shares on the market.
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is competing with Anthropic to become two companies listed on the public markets. The two companies have submitted confidential IPO documents to US regulators, and are targeting valuations approaching $1 trillion.
The New York Times reported in June that OpenAI was inclined to postpone its launch until next year.
In another sign of mounting concerns about the safety of artificial intelligence, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday called on artificial intelligence companies to slow the pace of development of advanced technology.
“We must slow the pace at which we develop the capabilities of artificial intelligence models,” Amodei said in a post on his personal website, adding that progress will remain rapid, but slowing the pace will give the sector time to make wiser decisions.
Altman and Elon Musk, owner of XAI, supported Amodei's assessment of the need to slow down the pace of AI development.
These statements came days after artificial intelligence researcher Jacob Cookson left the sector, following his move from Open AI to Anthropic, due to safety concerns.
Coxon had written on the “X” platform that those working on developing artificial intelligence seriously believe that this technology may pose an existential threat to humanity before the end of the decade.
When Altman was asked by Fortune about the risks of human extinction, he said that those working in this field bear an “enormous responsibility,” and cannot allow ego, financial incentives, or any other factors to influence their decisions.
OpenAI revealed in July that its models were able, during tests, to exit their isolated environment, connect to the Internet, and infiltrate the “Hagging Face” platform, which developers use to store and share code.
The incident caused more than a thousand employees in companies specialized in developing the latest artificial intelligence technologies to sign a petition in which they called on the US government to help slow down the introduction of the most advanced artificial intelligence models.
Last month, the US government launched a voluntary mechanism to review the security of advanced artificial intelligence models before launching them, but the details and standards of the program are still unclear.
Saudi stocks fell in early trading, Sunday, in response to drone attacks that targeted the kingdom's main oil pipeline.
The main index of the Saudi market fell by 1 percent, affected by the decline in the shares of “Al Rajhi Bank” by 0.8 percent, and the decline in the shares of the “Saudi Arabian Mining Company” (Ma’aden) by 2.4 percent.
“Saudi Aramco” shares fell 1.1 percent, while “Rabigh Refining and Petrochemicals” shares fell 7.3 percent, recording the market’s largest losses during the session.
The wave of selling came after a precautionary suspension of the East-West pipeline, following the targeting of facilities in the Riyadh and Medina regions with air strikes on Thursday, which resulted in the injury of a number of people.
Riyadh and Baghdad accused parties of using Iraqi territory to carry out the attack, in areas where Iranian-backed militias are active, while the Iraqi government dismissed a prominent military commander on Saturday.
In a development that expands the geopolitical repercussions of the attack, US President Donald Trump directly held Iran responsible for the strikes that targeted the pipeline.
In the rest of the Gulf markets, the main index in Qatar bucked the regional trend, rising 0.2 percent, supported by gains in the “Industries Qatar” petrochemical stock.
