Baladna (QSE: BLDN) will raise equity for the first time since listing. At an adjourned extraordinary general meeting held on 22 July 2026, shareholders of the Qatari dairy and food producer approved a rights issue giving holders the right to subscribe for one new ordinary share for every four existing ordinary shares, a step the company records in note 25 of its interim accounts as a subsequent event with no effect on the balance sheet as at 30 June 2026. The company states that the issue is intended to increase its issued and paid-up share capital and remains subject to the completion of the relevant regulatory and procedural requirements.
The capital base being expanded
Baladna’s authorised, issued and paid-up share capital stood at QR 2,143,984,962 at 30 June 2026, unchanged from 31 December 2025. That capital is divided into 2,143,984,961 ordinary shares with a nominal value of QR 1 each, plus a single special share held by the State of Qatar through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The special share carries specific rights to appoint certain directors and to veto particular decisions of the company, set out in Article 28 of the articles of association. A rights issue struck at one new share for every four held is therefore an increase measured against a register in which one holder has structural rights that no subscription changes.
The capital has moved before, but not through cash. During 2024 the company issued bonus shares on a one for nineteen basis and again on a one for fourteen basis, capitalising an equivalent amount from retained earnings and lifting share capital from QR 1,901,000,000. Those issues added QR 100,052,631 and QR 142,932,331 respectively and had no effect on retained earnings attributable to shareholders. They increased the share count used in the earnings per share calculation, which is why the prior period figure is restated. A rights issue is a different instrument: it brings cash in, and the new shares are paid for.
What the half year shows
Revenue from contracts with customers for the six months to 30 June 2026 was QR 659,422,353, against QR 642,507,960 a year earlier. Gross profit rose to QR 194,292,368 from QR 166,551,896 as cost of revenue fell. Net profit for the period was QR 361,922,900 against QR 331,198,107, and basic and diluted earnings per share attributable to equity holders were QR 0.170 against a restated QR 0.154. For the full year to 31 December 2025 the company reported net profit attributable to equity holders of QR 539,736,320 and earnings per share of QR 0.252, after QR 185,012,156 in the prior year.
A large part of that profit is not dairy. The gain on investments in financial assets at fair value through profit or loss was QR 254,453,948 in the half, against QR 242,328,057 a year earlier, on a portfolio that grew to QR 1,303,722,593 from QR 994,476,800 at the end of 2025. Operating profit for the period was QR 398,136,057. Excluding that gain, the operating result from the food business is smaller than the reported operating profit of QR 398,136,057.
Analysis: the funding position the issue was approved against
The funding side of the accounts sets out the position recorded as at the date of the approval. Islamic financing contracts rose to QR 2,816,669,837 at 30 June 2026 from QR 2,447,343,738 at 31 December 2025, with the non-current portion climbing to QR 2,473,017,798 from QR 1,939,005,167. Cash and bank balances fell to QR 284,196,244 from QR 374,789,122. Total assets grew to QR 7,146,493,805 from QR 6,108,264,622 in six months, and the two line items that grew most were advances to suppliers, up to QR 949,275,556 from QR 372,583,615, and the fair value portfolio. Finance costs of QR 34,877,895 for the half compare with QR 78,471,415 for the whole of 2025.
The company also discloses that it has no collateral pledged against its finance contracts and that all facilities are unsecured, apart from a marginal facility obtained for the investment in financial assets at fair value through profit or loss. An unsecured, growing financing book funded against an equity base that has not taken in new cash since listing is the standard setting for a pre-emptive issue, and the 2024 bonus issues did nothing to change it because they moved reserves rather than raising money.
The same statements record the movement in the fixed asset base over the period. Property, plant and equipment reached QR 3,469,872,271 from QR 3,285,605,491, and during 2025 the incorporation of a subsidiary added QR 388,166,140 to non-controlling interests. What the approval establishes is the ratio, the stated purpose and the date of the shareholder decision. What it does not establish, on the evidence of the filings, is the subscription price, the total proceeds, whether any part is underwritten, or how the money is allocated between the financing book and capital expenditure. Those are the items a careful reader would look for in the information document the rules require, and in the first set of accounts published after the subscription closes.
The timetable the rules impose
The Offering and Listing, and Mergers and Acquisitions Rules 2025, issued under the Qatar Financial Markets Authority board’s approval of 9 July 2025, set the mechanics. Under rule 14.1.1, the record date for a rights issue is the date falling 3 working days after the extraordinary general assembly at which the decision to approve it is taken. Under rule 14.1.3, an issuer must not hold that assembly at all unless it has given the Authority an information document and the Authority has approved it, a decision the Authority must normally make no later than 5 working days after the document is provided. The document itself must reach every shareholder entitled to a tradable right no later than 5 working days before the meeting, and must state the total value of the capital to be raised, the percentage increase in capital it represents, the nominal value and the offer price, and the process used to set that price.
After the record date the depository registers the tradable rights in shareholders’ names, and the exchange lists them and announces the start of trading on the day after the record date. Trading in the rights runs for 5 working days from listing, after which the exchange delists them, and holders then have 10 working days from the end of trading to exercise. No fee may be charged for listing or registering a tradable right. Rights may not be pledged, seized or bought on margin, and they cannot be exercised where doing so would breach an ownership limit in the articles or in law. Any shares left unsubscribed are dealt with under rule 14.1.8, which requires the issuer to report to the Authority and the depository the names of those who exercised, the number of shares subscribed, the resulting ownership percentages and the number of unsubscribed shares.
