Stock sale: Advisers to Saudi Aramco have been in Saudi Arabia making the last preparations for a secondary share offering
Saudi state oil giant Aramco is lining up a fresh sale of between $10billion (£7.8billion) and $20billion (£15.7billion) of its stock.
Advisers have been making the last preparations for a secondary share offering and the final decision is expected to be made by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The deal has attracted informal interest from investors of more than £7.8billion.
The Saudi state and its sovereign wealth fund own the vast majority of Aramco, with just 1.5 per cent of the company traded publicly on the kingdom’s stock exchange, following its first public offering in 2019.
The sale raised a record $29.4billion (£23billion), still history’s largest IPO to date. Aramco is the world’s largest oil firm but Saudi Arabia recently chalked up its sixth consecutive quarterly budget deficit and has forecast a deficit of £16.5billion for the year.