Saudi Arabia Replaces CEO Leading Development of Megacity Neom

yesterday

BNN

(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia replaced the executive that was overseeing its plan to build the $1.5 trillion futuristic development known as Neom, in the latest sign that the project is struggling to deliver on its ambitions.

Nadhmi Al-Nasr, who had been chief executive officer of Neom since 2018, will be replaced by Aiman Al-Mudaifer for now, according to a statement on X. Al-Mudaifer has been head of local real estate at Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is the owner of Neom, for the past six years.

“As Neom enters a new phase of delivery, this new leadership will ensure operational continuity, agility and efficiency to match the overall vision and objectives of the project,” Neom said in the statement.

Neom is the biggest project within Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plans for diversifying the oil-dependent economy. Its total budget was initially said to be $500 billion, but other estimates put it as high as $1.5 trillion.

Crown Prince Mohammed intends for Neom to be a showpiece that will transform his country’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life. The most high-profile part of the development is The Line, a pair of mirror-clad skyscrapers that would be taller than the Empire State Building and longer than the distance between New York and Philadelphia.

It’s expected to eventually contain hospitals, parks and schools and ultimately house nine million residents — all without cars. Designers came up with the foundation for the project by replicating the grid system in Manhattan, widening it and folding it in half to tower into the air, executives from The Line said at a conference on Tuesday in Riyadh.

The detailed master plan for the first phase of the project also includes a “hidden marina,” said Denis Hickey, the project’s chief development officer. In 2025, teams will start laying the underlying concrete slab for The Line and then begin building upward, he added, though he refrained from giving specific delivery dates.

Slowly Opening

Neom’s plans also include about a dozen other projects from ports to tourism developments. In addition to The Line, Neom representatives said they are also prioritizing the development of the mountain ski resort of Trojena and a floating industrial city called Oxagon. Construction at the luxury destination dubbed Magna is expected to start in 2027.

Neom opened its first development last month: Sindalah Island. The tourism resort is home to ultra-luxury hotels and unspoilt beaches, plus an 86-berth marina where the uber rich can dock their yachts and dive into the crystal clear waters of the Red Sea.

Still, other parts of Neom have suffered setbacks this year, Bloomberg has reported. For instance, the government at one point hoped to have 1.5 million residents living in The Line by 2030. Now, officials expect the development will house fewer than 300,000 residents by that time.

Earlier this year, Al-Nasr invited hundreds of bankers to visit Neom as he hunted for new forms of funding for the development. In the past, most of Neom’s funding has come in the form of equity injections from the PIF.

(Updates with details on the Line starting in sixth paragraph.)