Int’l investors grabbed bulk of share offering: Saudi Aramco

Oil giant Saudi Aramco said Sunday that international investors had snatched up the bulk of shares sold in its latest offering, which was set to raise $11.2 billion.

The secondary offering was expected to offer a short-term boost to Saudi Arabia's finances as the Gulf kingdom builds large-scale projects including resorts and stadiums, part of a reform drive to prepare for an eventual post-oil future. "The majority of the shares constituting the institutional tranche of the offering was allocated to investors located outside of the kingdom," the company said in a statement before the Saudi bourse reopened on Sunday.

Sources close to the situation told AFP that around 58% of shares were allocated to international investors, up from around 23% for the company's initial public offering in 2019 which was the biggest flotation in history. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information, said around 70% of orders outside the local market came from the European Union and the United States, while others came from Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.


Aramco, the mostly state-owned jewel of the Saudi economy, announced on May 30 that it would sell 1.545 billion shares, or approximately 0.64% of its issued shares, on the Saudi stock exchange. It was widely seen as a test of foreign investor interest more than halfway through the kingdom's campaign known as Vision 2030, whose ambitions are reflected in so-called giga-projects such as NEOM, a planned futuristic megacity in the desert.