Saudi Aramco shares to begin trading after world's biggest IPO

Saudi Aramco's shares begin trading domestically on Wednesday, after the energy behemoth raised USD 25.6 billion in the world's biggest initial public offering.

Aramco has priced its IPO at 32 riyals (USD 8.53) per share, the high end of the target range, surpassing the USD 25 billion raised by Chinese retail giant Alibaba in its 2014 Wall Street debut.

The sale of 1.5 per cent of the firm, or three billion shares, is the bedrock of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious strategy to overhaul the oil-reliant economy.

Riyadh's Tadawul stock exchange said it will hold an opening auction for Aramco shares for an hour from 9:30 (0630 GMT) followed by continuous trading, with price changes limited to plus or minus 10 percent.

The company said Friday it could exercise a "greenshoe" option, selling additional shares to bring the total raised up to USD 29.4 billion.

The market launch puts the oil behemoth's value at USD 1.7 trillion, far ahead of other firms in the trillion-dollar club, including Apple and Microsoft.

But the scaled-down IPO is still a far cry from the blockbuster originally planned by Prince Mohammed.

The much-delayed stock sale, first announced in 2016, was initially expected to raise as much as USD 100 billion from the sale of up to five percent of the company.

The government's plans to raise additional funds by listing on a major international market are also on hold.

The IPO fell short of Prince Mohammed's desired USD 2 trillion valuation.

But the government is trying to persuade wealthy families and institutions to buy Aramco shares after it floats in a last-ditch effort to reach the $2 trillion mark, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The Saudi government itself has pumped in huge funds to boost the IPO, which was originally intended to raise external funding for the kingdom's diversification plan.

Two-thirds of the shares were offered to institutional investors. Saudi government bodies accounted for 13.2 per cent of the institutional tranche, investing around USD 2.3 billion, according to lead IPO manager Samba Capital.

The IPO is a crucial part of Prince Mohammed's plan to wean the economy away from oil by pumping funds into megaprojects and non-energy industries such as tourism and entertainment.

But sceptics say the proceeds will barely cover the kingdom's budget deficit for a year.

The IPO was heavily focused on Saudi and other Gulf traders. International investors have remained sceptical about the secretive company's targeted valuation.

The IPO also comes with oil prices under pressure due to a sluggish global economy hit by the US-China trade war and record output by non-OPEC crude exporters.