Saudi Aramco shares rose on Sunday, the first trading day after a secondary offering of the company’s shares that is expected to raise at least $11.2 billion.
Aramco shares began trading today at 27.95 riyals ($7.45) before rising to 28.35 ($7.56) by 07:30 GMT on Sunday. It had recorded 28.3 riyals ($7.55) at the end of the previous session on Thursday, according to data from the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).
The price of the share in the secondary offering was set at 27.25 riyals ($7.27), which is the lower limit of the specified price range.
Allocation ratios
Aramco announced the allocation percentages in the secondary offering as follows:
- Shareholders from international institutional investors: about 0.73% of the issued shares.
- Shareholders from local institutional investors: about 0.89% of the issued shares.
- Shareholders from individual investors: about 0.76% of the issued shares.
- Other shareholders, including the Saudi government: about 97.62% of the issued shares.
Reuters quoted an informed source as saying that the offering was covered between 4 and 5 times.
He added that external demand was higher than its counterpart during Aramco’s record initial public offering in 2019 and witnessed demand from China and other regions in Asia, while another spoke of demand from Europe.
Saudi Aramco shares declined during today’s trading from its last close last Thursday (Getty)
Strong request
Bloomberg quoted unnamed sources as saying that the deal attracted strong demand from the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Japan, which also supported the share sale, which attracted orders with a total value of more than $65 billion.
Informed sources added to the agency that the secondary offer attracted about 450 funds and more than 125 new international investors.
Saudi Arabia is seeking to attract international investments to pump tens of billions of dollars into projects aimed at diversifying its resources away from dependence on oil, within the framework of implementing the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. However, these efforts have repeatedly failed to achieve the goals set for the size of these investments.
