Markets Insider
- Saudi Aramco shares spiked 10% on its opening day of trading after the company started trading shares publicly on Wednesday. That’s the daily limit on the exchange.
- The surge in share price means that the company is now worth $1.9 trillion.
- That massive market capitalization dwarfs giant publicly listed Goliaths like Apple and Alphabet.
- Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had been seeking a valuation of $2 trillion.
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Saudi Aramco shares spiked 10% on its opening day of trading after the company started trading shares publicly on the Tadawul exchange on Wednesday.
The surge in share price means that the company, which earlier this week was valued at $1.7 trillion after raising $25.6 billion in its IPO, is now worth a whopping $1.9 trillion. That dwarfs the market capitalizations of the biggest US giants, like Microsoft, Apple, and Google parent Alphabet.
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had been seeking a valuation of $2 trillion for the state-owned oil giant, to help finance his Vision 2030 plan of diversifying the Saudi economy away from oil.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi officials had been pushing for the country’s wealthy to buy shares in the company when it went public, and according to the Financial Times, this was happening up until Tuesday evening.
The proportion of shares offered in the IPO is tiny compared to other publicly listed companies. Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet have over 84% of their shares held by public investors, according to Bloomberg data. For Facebook, public holders own about 98.8% of its shares.
However, according to AP only Saudi citizens or Gulf nationals were allowed to buy shares in Aramco.
