How the industry works
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1Before anyone arrives
The visa
Nothing moves until the state says it can. A manpower company does not hire, it applies: the Ministry of Human Resources grants the license and a block of visas against its Nitaqat quota, and agents in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa fill them. The visa is paid for before anyone arrives.
In FY2025 the four bought SAR 193M of visas, used SAR 149M and had SAR 36M refunded. Maharah and Al Mawarid buy more than twice what they did in 2021, SMASCO and Tamkeen little more.
Visas purchased, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenSAR millions bought in the year. Whatever is not used by the year end waits on the balance sheet for a worker, or for a refund.
Ministry visa blockRecruitment agents abroadCapital committed and nobody on the ground. The number to watch is how long a visa sits before it is used.
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2The cost that does not pause
The workforce
A visa becomes a worker once someone has paid the agent, bought the flight, passed the medical, issued the iqama and found a bed in company housing. From then the meter runs on salary, food, transport and the levy, on a contract or in a camp.
Maharah, Al Mawarid and Tamkeen have each roughly doubled the workforce they deploy since 2021. SMASCO started with the largest, grew it least, by about two thirds, and is now only just ahead.
Active leased workforce, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenWorkers on hire at the year end, as each company discloses it.
Medical and iqamaCompany housingWorkers housed and on the payroll. The number to watch is idle days, which none of the four discloses.
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3Three doors out
The deployment
The workforce leaves through three doors that behave nothing alike. A corporate contract runs one to three years at a rate fixed when it is signed. A household contract runs a year. An hourly booking is repriced every morning and earns nothing on a day nobody books.
How much of the visa shelf goes out through those doors is the deployment rate. SMASCO deploys the most, 64% in FY2025, up two years running. Al Mawarid fell back from its best year in 2024, and Maharah and Tamkeen used less than half.
Visa deployment rate, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenVisas used in the year as a share of those available to use: the opening stock plus the year's purchases. The rest is carried into the next year or refunded.
Corporate contractsHousehold and hourlyWorkers on contract and revenue booked. None of it has been collected.
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4Keeping them working
The monitoring
The last stage is keeping workers employed and getting paid for them. A contract that ends has to be replaced at once, or the meter from stage two runs with nothing against it, and the contractors, hospitals and state bodies that hire in bulk pay on their own timetable.
Tamkeen collected in about a month in 2021 and now takes more than two, as corporate work rose from just over half its revenue to more than three quarters. SMASCO waits nearly as long. Maharah and Al Mawarid collect faster than in 2021.
Days sales outstanding, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenDays of revenue waiting to be collected, as the workbook computes it on average receivables.
RedeploymentReceivablesCollected. Only now has the visa bought at stage one paid for itself.
How they make money
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Where the growth is
Corporate
Hospitals, hotels, giga-projects, ministries and contractors: won on tender, staffed for years and repriced only when the contract comes up. It is the reason the industry doubled, and the reason it did so on a thinner margin. Maharah holds the largest share of it, and SMASCO, which deploys the most workers in the sector, a fifth.
Corporate revenue grew from SAR 2.8B in 2021 to almost SAR 7B in 2025, a compound 26% a year and the fastest of the three doors.
Share of the corporate door, FY2025Contracts with companies and the state, usually one to three years at a rate fixed when signed.
The corporate door is five sectors: industrial and operational, hospitality and healthcare, commercial and services, facilities management, and everything else.
On the surface the split is corporate against household. The real contest is inside the corporate book, by the sector the workers are sent to. Industrial and operational contracts were close to half of the industry's revenue in FY2025, and Al Mawarid and Maharah took most of them. SMASCO held half of that line in 2021 and holds a seventh of it now; Tamkeen has gone the other way.
Maharah has led hospitality and healthcare, and commercial and services, in every year covered here. In industrial and operational work SMASCO lost the lead to Al Mawarid in 2024. Facilities management is staffed by Maharah and SMASCO alone, and the lead has changed hands between them every year.
The corporate door by sector, FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenEach bar is a share of the four companies’ whole revenue, split by who earns it. The household and hourly doors, 21% of it, are the two rows below.
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Where the intensity is
Household
Domestic workers placed with families on annual contracts, paid for up front. The slowest-growing of the three doors, and a shrinking share of revenue at three of the four. SMASCO holds the largest piece of it and is the one company where the household share has held.
Share of the household door, FY2025Domestic workers placed with families on annual contracts.
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Where the margin is
Hourly
Maids, drivers and carers booked by the hour through an app. The highest margin per hour in the sector, and the only door where the company carries the whole cost of a day nobody books. It peaks in Ramadan and is the smallest of the three. SMASCO leads it, and Tamkeen barely takes part.
Share of the hourly door, FY2025Maids, drivers and carers booked by the hour, mostly through an app.
Where the cash goes
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Where the money goes
The next visas and workforce
Visas, agents, flights and medicals for the next intake. It funds replacement as much as growth, because every worker who leaves has to be bought again. It sits inside operating cash flow, so it never looks like investment and never appears in anybody's capital expenditure screen.
Tamkeen spent close to eight percent of revenue on visas in 2021 and under three percent in FY2025. SMASCO has spent the least in every year but one, and all four now sit between one and a half and three percent.
Visas purchased, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenShare of revenue. The visa fee alone: the agent, the flight and the medical come on top of it.
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Where it does not
Capital expenditure
Camps, buses, branches, showrooms and systems. Everything except the people, and negligible beside them. Fixed assets turn over 23 times a year across the cohort and property is under 8 percent of the balance sheet.
This is the line an investor looks up to find what the business spends, and here it is the wrong line. It has never reached three percent of revenue at any of the four, and SMASCO, the highest in FY2025, is under two.
Capital expenditure, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenShare of revenue, as the cash flow statement reports it. Camps, buses, branches and systems: everything except the people.
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What is left over
Back to shareholders
The only genuinely optional arm, and all four used it in FY2025. In a business where standing still means buying the next intake, a heavy payout is a statement about how many more workers management expects to place.
Tamkeen declared nothing until 2024 and paid out 96 percent of FY2025 earnings. Maharah paid out 25 percent, the least of the four, in the one year its free cash flow was negative.
Dividends per share, 2021 to FY2025MaharahAl MawaridSMASCOTamkeenRiyals a share, as declared. A per-share figure moves with the share count, so read the shape of each line rather than the gap between them. Tamkeen's zeros are real: it declared nothing before 2024.
The four operators
Same ministry, same visa system, same levy on every worker, and four companies that each put their weight behind a different door. Below is what each one runs, and what it earned on the capital in FY2025.
Maharah 1831
- Listed
- Jun 2019
- Market cap
- SAR 2.3B
- Revenue
- SAR 3.1B
- Net margin
- 8.8%
- Free cash flow
- SAR -29.2M
- Dividend / share
- SAR 0.15
Al Mawarid 1833
- Listed
- Jun 2023
- Market cap
- SAR 1.5B
- Revenue
- SAR 2.6B
- Net margin
- 5.3%
- Free cash flow
- SAR 136M
- Dividend / share
- SAR 2.60
SMASCO 1834
- Listed
- Jun 2024
- Market cap
- SAR 2.1B
- Revenue
- SAR 2.1B
- Net margin
- 7.2%
- Free cash flow
- SAR 146M
- Dividend / share
- SAR 0.25
Tamkeen 1835
- Listed
- Nov 2024
- Market cap
- SAR 1.4B
- Revenue
- SAR 1.0B
- Net margin
- 9.5%
- Free cash flow
- SAR 96.8M
- Dividend / share
- SAR 3.48
Figures for FY2025. Market cap is at the year-end close. Listed is the month each company began trading on the Main Market.
Side by side, FY2025
Everything above is the mechanism. This is the year just reported, on one page, with all 4 of them measured the same way.
| Measure | Maharah1831 | Al Mawarid1833 | SMASCO1834 | Tamkeen1835 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Highlights | ||||
| Net revenuesscale of the business | SAR 3.1B | SAR 2.6B | SAR 2.1B | SAR 1.0B |
| Revenue growthyear on year | +39.2% | +28.8% | +10.7% | +40.5% |
| EBITDA marginbefore capital charges | 7.5% | 7.1% | 10.2% | 10.7% |
| Net profit marginper riyal of sales | 8.8% | 5.3% | 7.2% | 9.5% |
| Cash Highlights | ||||
| Days sales outstandingdays to collect a sale | 52 days | 53 days | 66 days | 67 days |
| Capex % of revenuesas the cash flow statement reports it | 0.4% | 0.1% | 1.5% | 0.6% |
| Dividends per sharedeclared for the year | SAR 0.15 | SAR 2.60 | SAR 0.25 | SAR 3.48 |
| Free cash flowafter capital spending | SAR -29.2M | SAR 136M | SAR 146M | SAR 96.8M |
| Operational Highlights | ||||
| Deployed workforceworkers on hire at year end | 43,900 | 34,686 | 46,800 | 13,800 |
| Revenue per deployed workera year, per worker on hire | SAR 80,179 | SAR 82,118 | SAR 47,659 | SAR 80,485 |
| Cost per deployed workersalaries and other workforce costs, a year | SAR 62,896 | SAR 67,670 | SAR 37,747 | SAR 59,574 |
| Margin per deployed workerrevenue less workforce cost, per worker | 21.6% | 17.6% | 20.8% | 26.0% |
| Other Highlights | ||||
| Board remunerationpaid to directors | SAR 5.9M | SAR 3.0M | SAR 3.8M | SAR 2.6M |
| Branchescustomer-facing branches | 18 | 11 | 17 | 14 |
| Employeesheadcount at year end | 534 | 314 | 428 | 295 |
| Revenue per employeenet revenues per full-time employee | SAR 5.8M | SAR 8.3M | SAR 4.9M | SAR 3.4M |
Marking the stronger figure is arithmetic, not a recommendation. A company can lead every row here and still be the wrong price.
Does the capital earn its keep
Return on invested capital against what that capital costs, every year from FY2021 to FY2025. Above the line the business is creating value. Below it, it is consuming value, however healthy the revenue line looks.
Maharah+3.3pt FY2025
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROIC | 22.3% | 8.9% | 7.8% | 11.0% | 14.8% |
| WACC | 5.8% | 6.7% | 9.5% | 11.0% | 11.5% |
| Spread | +16.5pt | +2.2pt | -1.6pt | -0.1pt | +3.3pt |
Al Mawarid+11.5pt FY2025
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROIC | 23.2% | 25.5% | 23.0% | 21.1% | 23.1% |
| WACC | 9.2% | 12.3% | 12.0% | 11.2% | 11.6% |
| Spread | +14.1pt | +13.2pt | +11.0pt | +9.8pt | +11.5pt |
SMASCO+9.3pt FY2025
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROIC | 23.3% | 20.6% | 24.2% | 17.1% | 21.0% |
| WACC | 10.1% | 13.9% | 13.5% | 13.2% | 11.7% |
| Spread | +13.2pt | +6.7pt | +10.7pt | +3.9pt | +9.3pt |
Tamkeen+10.8pt FY2025
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROIC | 26.2% | 20.8% | 16.9% | 17.3% | 21.8% |
| WACC | 8.6% | 8.7% | 8.9% | 11.3% | 11.1% |
| Spread | +17.6pt | +12.1pt | +8.0pt | +6.0pt | +10.8pt |
What decides the next two years
Whether the giga-projects keep hiring
Close to half of this industry's revenue is industrial and operational contracts, and nearly all of the growth since 2021 has come through the corporate door. That is Vision 2030 construction and the operations that follow it, and the state has already begun resequencing some of its largest projects to match what it can fund. A slower pipeline would show first in renewals and in the rate the next tender is won at, not in revenue, which is contracted. Tamkeen and Al Mawarid, the most exposed, would feel it first.
Oil, and when the state pays
Many of the corporate customers are contractors paid by the state or by state-linked bodies, and their payment timetable follows the budget. Collection periods have already lengthened at Tamkeen and SMASCO. If a weaker oil price stretches the government's own payables, it reaches these receivables a quarter or two later, on balance sheets that pay salaries every month regardless.
What a worker costs to bring in
Everything the state charges for a foreign worker lands on these income statements before it can be passed on: the levy, the visa fee, insurance, and the Nitaqat quota that decides how many can be hired at all. Corporate contracts are repriced only at renewal, so a rise in any of them is absorbed for a year or three. Worker mobility matters as well: rules that make it easier to move between employers raise the chance that a worker already paid for leaves before the contract does.
Whether the visa shelf gets heavier
Close to a fifth of what the four spent on visas in FY2025 came back as refunds, against a few percent in 2021, and a refunded visa is capital that sat for a year earning nothing. Maharah carries most of it. If refunds keep rising while headcount growth slows, the industry is buying ahead of demand it cannot place, and that shows here before it shows in revenue.
The full workings
Every statement, ratio and cost-of-capital build behind this piece, for all 4 companies, on one page.
Open the data appendixThe cohort is the listed sector: all four manpower companies on the Main Market report to 31 December and all four are covered here, so a “sector median” on this site is the median of the whole listed industry. The workbook begins in FY2021 for every company, which is where every chart and table on these pages starts. Three of the four listed during the period, so quoted share prices, market values and every price multiple begin part way across it.