Source FY2025 audited financial statements, restated in the modelWorkings data appendixUpdated 24 September 2026
The read
The cleanest balance sheet in Saudi milling. No bank borrowings at all: what the model carries as debt is lease liabilities. Next to no acquisition premium either, and interest covered 24.0x over. It earns 18.1% on invested capital of SAR 1.2B, which costs 8.7%, a spread of +9.5pt.
It is also the best converter in the cohort. Net margin of 30.4% and EBITDA margin of 40.4% are both the highest of the four, on the smallest revenue base at SAR 660M, or 17.1% of the sector. It runs its plant hardest, at 98.3% of capacity, and does it with the smallest workforce here, which is why its revenue per employee is more than half as high again as the next best.
The caution is the mirror image of First Mills'. Its reported return owes less to a purchase premium than anyone's, so there is less hidden in it: on operating capital it earns 19.0%, the lowest of the four, against a reported 18.1%. The plant is the smallest in the sector and its capacity has moved least. Paying out 59.2% of net profit against free cash flow of SAR 199M is comfortable, but a company whose growth has to come from tons eventually has to spend on tons.
The bet it made
Fourth Mills is the counterexample that makes the sector's arithmetic legible. The smallest plant in the cohort, run harder than any of them, and almost none of the acquisition accounting that shapes the other three. No goodwill worth the name, and no bank borrowings at all: every riyal the model shows as debt is a lease liability.
It was also the last of the four to reach the market, listing in late 2024 at 5.30 riyals a share for 30% of the company.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Mills | 1.1% | 7.6% | 4.9% | 4.8% | 4.2% | 12.4% | 5.5% | 7.4% |
| Modern Mills | 2.2% | 3.0% | 4.7% | 3.3% | 3.5% | 6.0% | 10.6% | 13.3% |
| Arabian Mills | n/a | n/a | 7.7% | 14.5% | 8.1% | 2.3% | 1.9% | 5.8% |
| Fourth Mills | n/a | n/a | 7.5% | 6.2% | 12.8% | 1.8% | 2.5% | 5.4% |
Where the volume comes from
Regulated flour
3,518 tons a day of wheat milling capacity, the smallest in the cohort, run at 98% utilization, the hardest-run plant of the four. There is very little slack left to grow into.
Bran and feed
450 tons a day of feed capacity, the smallest here, and no bran or durum capacity disclosed. The unregulated half of its ton is the least visible in the cohort.
Beyond the allocation
Its edge is not product breadth but cost. It runs on 172 people against 451 to 623 at the other three, and converts more of each riyal of revenue into profit than any of them.
What it does with the money
With no lenders to repay and no premium to work off, the cash has gone out. The payout has been high since before listing and nothing competes with it.
That is a comfortable position and a static one. A company running at 98% utilization with the smallest plant in the sector cannot grow on the tons it already mills, and the capital it would need to add them is the one thing this balance sheet has never had to carry.
What comes back to shareholders
Of what it earned in FY2025, Fourth Mills declared SAR 0.22 a share, 59.2% of net profit, against free cash flow of SAR 199M. Every riyal a miller earns arrives at the same fork: back into the plant, or out to shareholders. That ratio is the answer this one gave.
In context
This company only means something next to the other three and against the economics of the industry they share.
Read the industry piece See it against the others