LONDON — Saudi Arabia is on the brink of amassing upwards of $11.2 billion by offloading Aramco shares to finance the kingdom’s expenditure initiatives. This influx of capital comes despite the state-owned oil behemoth setting the stock price at the lower spectrum of the anticipated range, as announced by the company on Friday.
The share pricing was the outcome of an extensive promotional tour in London and New York, spearheaded by Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser. The company also sought to pique the interest of Asian investors, inviting them to participate in the offering.
Initially, Aramco proposed a share price interval of 26.7 to 29.0 riyals ($7.12 to $7.73), but ultimately locked the price at 27.25 riyals ($7.27) this past Friday.
An insider privy to the share offering relayed to Reuters that the subscription interest was quadruple to quintuple the number of available shares. Additional informants conveyed to the news agency that the global appetite for the shares surpassed that of Aramco’s 2019 initial public offering (IPO), with considerable attention stemming from China, Asia at large, and Europe, as noted by another individual.
Aramco declared the issue of an additional 1.545 billion shares, which equates to 0.64% of the company’s total issued shares.