Aramco raises $29.4 billion in world’s biggest initial public offering

NEW YORK/DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (UPI) — Saudi Arabia’s Aramco raised $29.4 billion in the world’s largest initial public offering, surpassing the oil company’s original listing by $5 billion.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the underwriters of the IPO, exercised the option to place 450 million additional shares that were initially separated to avoid price swings, according to a statement. The shares at $8.53 were placed with investors during the book-building process. The stabilization period ended Friday.

“The 450 million shares subject to the over-allotment option had been allocated to investors during the book-building process and therefore, no additional shares are being offered into the market today,” the company explained in a statement to the Saudi Arabian stock exchange

The size of the stake moved to 1.725 percent, up from 1.5 percent, of the worth of the company.

In December, the company announced it raised $25.6 billion by selling 3 billion shares at the $8.53 price.

At the close of trading Sunday on the Tadawul stock exchange in Saudi Arabia, the shares closed down 0.57 percent. But the stock price of $9.28, or 34.8 rivals, is 8.8 percent higher than the IPO price.

This gives the company an overall valuation of $1.86 trillion. U.S.-based Apple is worth $1.15 trillion.

The IPO relied heavily on individuals and high-net-worth investors and funds from the Gulf, with the Saudi government institutions investing almost $2.3 billion into the offering.

The kingdom had originally expected to raise up to $100 billion.

Saudi Arabia plans to move the funds to the Public Investment Fund for projects and initiatives aligned to the Vision 2030 plan. The nation has been attempting to diversify by moving revenues from hydrocarbons.

“We expect PIF’s investment focus to be mainly domestic, which could help non-oil growth,”Fitch Ratings said in a note issued before the company’s listing.

The previous IPO record was set by Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s IPO in 2014 at $25 billion.

Aramco, which accounts for one in every eight barrels of crude produced, declared a profit of $68.19 billion on revenue of $217.1 billion in the first nine months of last year. In 2018, it produced 13.6 million barrels per day of oil equivalent.

Reporting by Allen Cone