Summary

  • stc completed the sale of a 51% controlling interest in tower company TAWAL to the Public Investment Fund on 31 December 2024, converting an announced April 2024 agreement into a realized control transfer and a one-off gain of SAR 12.89 billion in discontinued operations; the retained stake of roughly 43.06% in the combined tower entity is now equity-accounted.
  • Data centers went the other way: center3 remains 100% owned by stc, has SAR 11.25 billion of completed investment behind it and a further SAR 37.5 billion committed toward 1 GW of capacity by 2030 — an investment plan, not a monetization, and one whose December 2025 Humain joint venture still requires confirmation of binding status.

What actually closed on 31 December 2024

The clearest way to read stc's infrastructure strategy is to separate two dates. On 22 April 2024, stc announced to the Saudi Exchange that it had signed agreements with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to sell a 51% stake in Telecommunications Towers Company (TAWAL) and to combine TAWAL with Golden Lattice Investment Company (GLIC), stc's other tower vehicle https://www.saudiexchange.sa/wps/portal/saudiexchange/newsandreports/issuer-news/issuer-announcements/issuer-announcements-details?anCat=1&anId=79495&locale=en. At that point, nothing had changed in control or cash: an SPA had been signed, and everything downstream was conditional on regulatory and commercial approvals.

The state changed on 31 December 2024. stc's own annual report on subsidiaries and investments records that, as of that date, stc sold a controlling interest in TAWAL and Digital Infrastructure Company pursuant to the approved sale and purchase agreement between stc and PIF, approved by stc's General Assembly https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf. Trade press reporting on the completion filing to Tadawul confirms that all procedures for selling the 51% stake were completed at year-end, after the necessary approvals https://www.argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1779454. The combined tower entity's ownership is distributed as 54.38% PIF, 43.06% stc, and 2.56% held by HRH Prince Saud bin Fahad bin Abdulaziz and Sultan Holding Company, per stc's annual report disclosure https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf.

Three consequences follow from the loss of control, and each is verifiable in the issuer's own reporting:

First, deconsolidation. From the date control was lost, stc began accounting for its retained interest in TAWAL and Digital Infrastructure Company using the equity method under IAS 28 https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf. The towers are no longer consolidated revenue and EBITDA; they are a share of an associate's results.

Second, the one-off gain. stc's FY2024 results presentation attributes SAR 13.97 billion of net profit from discontinued operations in 2024 — against SAR 0.76 billion the prior year — primarily to a SAR 12.89 billion gain from the sale of the controlling interest in TAWAL and Digital Infrastructure Company https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/earnings-presentation2024en.pdf. Riyad Capital's first-look note on the results puts the total gain from the TAWAL and DIC sale at SAR 12,885 million and notes that full-year reported net profit rose 86% to SAR 24.7 billion, while normalized profit growth — excluding one-offs — was 13% https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/earnings-presentation2024en.pdf Riyad Capital, 4Q2024 first look note. The gap between those two growth rates is the size of the transaction in earnings terms: roughly three-quarters of the headline profit surge was the towers exit, not the operating business.

Third, the earnings-quality signal. The transaction was not merely announced with hoped-for proceeds; it produced booked gains in audited-scope results disclosures. Enterprise AM's report on the finalization describes the deal as a SAR 8.9 billion acquisition of the 51% stake by PIF, structured as a share swap plus a capital injection https://enterpriseam.com/ksa/2025/02/12/pif-finalizes-acquisition-of-tawal-stc-transfers-ownership-to-new-entity/. The exact injection figure is disputed across reports — stc's annual report records about SAR 128.37 million injected into the new entity, while other reporting cites SAR 533 million — and this article returns to that conflict below.

Where the proceeds went: the dividend linkage

The stated purpose of the sale was capital recycling into shareholder returns and growth. The observable follow-through is a dividend framework with dates and amounts attached. stc's annual reporting links the completion of the TAWAL sale to a dividend policy effective from Q4 2024 through Q3 2027, with a minimum dividend of SAR 0.55 per share per quarter https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/stc2025-annual-report-en.pdf. The same document records total cash dividends distributed during 2025 of SAR 21 billion, including a special dividend of SAR 2 per share for FY2024, distributed on 2 June 2025 https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/stc2025-annual-report-en.pdf.

That is the cash-flow half of the mechanism: a one-off gain of SAR 12.89 billion, plus ongoing distributions, converted into a multi-year dividend commitment that outlasts the gain itself. Whether the dividend floor remains covered by recurring cash flow — rather than by further asset sales — is the test the next several years will answer, and the policy runs only to Q3 2027.

What was not sold: center3 and the retained data-center bet

The contrast with data centers is deliberate. As of 31 December 2024, center3 remained 100% owned by stc https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf. Rather than monetizing it, stc is capitalizing it: center3's own release of 4 August 2025 commits to an additional $10 billion investment by 2030 on top of $3 billion completed, targeting 1 GW of total capacity by 2030 and 300 MW of installed capacity by 2027, with hyperscaler-ready facilities across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other international locations https://center3.com/media-center/news/center3-drives-menas-digital-transformation-with-ambitious-1-gigawatt-data-center-expansion. stc's group-level framing of the same program is SAR 11.25 billion completed and SAR 37.5 billion committed https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/stc2025-annual-report-en.pdf. The currency bases differ between the two disclosures; the direction does not.

This is the opposite of a sale. It is a commitment of fresh capital against future customer contracts that do not yet exist in disclosed form. The stated strategic intent — expanding and monetizing infrastructure assets including fiber, data centers, submarine cables, mission-critical networks and passive towers — covers both legs, but the towers leg has been realized while the data-center leg is still an outflow on the cash-flow statement https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/stc2025-annual-report-en.pdf.

The Humain joint venture: announced, not yet proven

In December 2025, stc — through center3 — signed an agreement with PIF-backed Humain (Future Artificial Intelligence Co.) to launch a joint venture to develop and operate AI data centers in the Kingdom, with Humain holding 51% and stc 49%, capacity of up to 1 gigawatt, and an initial 250 MW depending on customer contracts https://www.arabnews.com/business/saudi-stc-pifs-humain-to-launch-a-jv-to-develop-ai-data-centers-2626699. Two features matter for the control analysis. First, stc is again taking the minority position in an AI-infrastructure venture with its own controlling shareholder's affiliate — the same direction of control transfer as the TAWAL sale, though at joint-venture rather than sale-and-purchase scale. Second, the reported terms are secondhand: whether the December 2025 announcement has since hardened into a binding agreement with committed capital, land and power is not established in the retained sources. The capacity figure "up to 1 GW, starting at 250 MW depending on customer contracts" is itself conditional language: the venture's economics begin only when customers sign.

Ownership plumbing: PIF on both sides

The transactions sit inside a web of related-party positions. PIF is stc's largest shareholder at 62% https://www.stc.com/content/dam/groupsites/en/pdf/stc2025-annual-report-en.pdf. In November 2024, PIF sold 100 million stc shares — 2% of issued capital — through an accelerated bookbuild at SAR 38.6 per share, raising SAR 3.86 billion, explicitly framed as capital recycling https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/news-and-insights/press-releases/2024/pif-announces-sale-of-100-million-shares-in-stc/. PIF therefore simultaneously sold down its stake in stc, sold stc's towers into an entity it controls at 54.38%, and is now stc's 51% partner in the Humain AI venture. Each step is individually documented; together they describe a state-coordinated redistribution of infrastructure ownership in which stc trades control of mature, cash-generating assets for minority stakes and a dividend commitment, while the state fund consolidates operating control.

Conflicting figures that remain unresolved

Two discrepancies in the retained record should be tracked rather than smoothed over. The PIF stake in the combined tower entity is reported as 53.99% in one completion account https://www.argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1779454 and 54.38% in stc's annual report https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf, most likely reflecting a final recalculation, but the audited filing governs. The capital injection by stc into the new entity is reported variously as SAR 128.37 million https://www.stc.com.sa/content/dam/stc/stc-annual-report-2024/assets/img/pdfs/subsidiaries-and-investments.pdf and SAR 533 million in press accounts https://enterpriseam.com/ksa/2025/02/12/pif-finalizes-acquisition-of-tawal-stc-transfers-ownership-to-new-entity/. Neither conflict changes the direction of the transaction; both matter for anyone modeling the exact consideration. Also undisclosed in the retained sources are TAWAL's standalone EBITDA, tenancy ratios and lease terms with stc — the commercial variables that determine what stc's retained 43.06% is actually worth.

The next observable condition

The mechanism is proven on one leg and open on the other. The towers leg produced a completed control transfer, a booked gain and a dividend framework. The data-center leg will be proven only by three things: signed hyperscaler or AI customer contracts at center3 and the Humain JV, disclosed utilization and pricing on the initial 250 MW, and evidence that the SAR 37.5 billion commitment is being drawn against revenue rather than being re-scoped. The first of those — a disclosed anchor customer or binding JV agreement — is the single next condition to watch.