DUBAI: Saudi Aramco shares opened up 10per cent on their Riyadh stock market debut on Wednesday, closing in on the US$2 trillion valuation long sought by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The shares opened at 35.2 riyal apiece, 10per cent above their initial public offering price of 32 riyals.Saudi Arabian Oil Co raised a record US$25.6 billion in its IPO last week, giving it a market value of around US$1.7 trillion. That makes is comfortably the world's largest listed company, although it will have one of the smallest"free floats" of publicly tradeable shares, at just 1.5per cent.
The flotation, a major challenge for the Riyadh stock exchange, propels the bourse into the world's top 10 by value of listed companies, Saudi Arabia relied on mainly domestic and regional investors to buy Aramco shares after lukewarm interest from abroad.The US$25.6 billion of proceeds beat Chinese tech firm Alibaba's US$25 billion listing in 2014.