Saudi Arabia Plans Aramco Shares Sale
The offering could raise $10 million, and the sale is expected to happen as soon as June.
Saudi Arabia is planning a multi-billion-dollar share sale in the energy giant Aramco. The sale is expected to happen in June, according to anonymous sources who spoke to Reuters. The sources said the preparations for the deal are still ongoing but predicted the offering could raise around $10 billion. Aramco expects to pay $31 billion in dividends, the company said earlier this month.
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The shares will be listed in Riyadh and it will be a fully marketed offering rather than an accelerated sale over a few days, they added.
Banks including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and HSBC had previously been lined up to manage the sale, Reuters has reported.
Aramco, the biggest oil exporter globally, has a market valuation of little more than $2 trillion.
Saudi Arabia has embarked on an economic transition known as Vision 2030, which puts an expanded private sector and non-oil growth at the center of its future development.
Last February, Bloomberg reported that the Kingdom is collaborating with advisors, aiming to raise at least $10 billion in a share sale on the Saudi exchange.
In January 2021, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared that the government planned to sell additional Aramco shares, with the earnings going to the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom.
Currently, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) owns 8% of Aramco, while the Saudi government holds almost 90% of the company.
The agreement may provide a financial boost to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious plan to diversify the country's economy. Four years after Saudi Arabia earned a historic $30 billion in Aramco's first public offering (IPO), plans for this fresh share sale have emerged.
