Shuaa Saudi Arabia has secured 4 mandates

RIYADH (Reuters) - Shuaa Capital's SHUA.DU Saudi unit said on Tuesday it has secured four investment banking mandates and is sounding out up to nine further deals in the largest Arab economy.

"The four we have confirmed," Shuaa Saudi Arabia's Chief Executive Omar Jaroudi told the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit in Riyadh, declining to identify the firms.

Shuaa Saudi Arabia was advising one education firm, a retailer on separate merger and acquisition deals, one manufacturer on drawing a business plan and a real estate firm on a private placement, he said.

A fifth mandate from a medical firm was being renegotiated, Jaroudi said, declining to be more specific.

"We're waiting for the situation to settle down so companies have more visibility ... The market is tough," he said, adding that initial public offerings, private placement and issuances of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, were the main areas of focus.

Shuaa Saudi Arabia, whose parent company is based in Dubai, got a first Saudi license in March 2008.

Since then, the firm has grabbed a 0.18 percent market share of the brokerage activity in Saudi Arabia, he said.

"Banks here dominate the brokerage activity," he said.

Shuaa Saudi Arabia is required to sell 30 percent of its capital in an initial public offering three years after its launch, Jaroudi said.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Asma Alsharif; Editing by Natsuko Waki and Rupert Winchester)