Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) has issued a prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO) on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).
The offering period for the institutional subscribers begins on November 17 and closes at the end of December 4.
The offering period for individual subscribers begins on November 17 and closes at the end of November 28.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that the initial public offering of state oil giant Aramco will be announced, with the intention to list 1-2 per cent on Saudi Stock Exchange or Tadawul. Riyadh plans to raise between US$20-40 billion at a desired valuation of $2 trillion. A secondary, international listing could follow later.
If the listing raises more than $25 billion, Aramco will become the largest IPO in the world, crossing Alibaba’s $25 billion listing in 2014.
Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil exporter and also the most profitable company - it reported a first-half net profit of $46.9 billion, dwarfing the likes of Apply, Google and Amazon in profits and size. In 2018, it made a profit of $111.1 billion on revenues of $355.9 billion.
Aramco’s listing is the cornerstone of the Crown Prince’s plans to diversity the Kingdom’s economy away from oil-dependency through its strategic Saudi Vision 2030.
The IPO plans initially announced in 2016 had faced several hurdles and changes, moving away from the ambitious plans of listing 5 per cent on an international stock exchange at a company valuation of $2 trillion, which has since been contested by analysts to be closer to $1-1.5 trillion.
