Aramco’s Delayed IPO Is Finally Set to Hit the Market

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had only just started his rise to global notoriety when he stunned the global business community in early 2016 by promising to sell shares in the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the state oil producer. Now, after several false starts, the initial public offering of Saudi Arabia’s crown jewel—Aramco, which pumps 10% of the global crude oil supply from abundant fields under the kingdom’s desert—is finally going ahead.

The government is set to make a formal announcement in late October, and the superlatives are likely to follow thick and fast: the biggest-ever share sale, the world’s most valuable company, the largest dividend payments in history. While details of the offer haven’t been made public, people involved in the transaction say about 2% of Aramco may be sold at a price that would value the entire company at $2 trillion, raising $40 billion and outstripping the $25 billion raised in 2014 by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. “Aramco is ready for listing whenever the shareholder makes a decision to list,” Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said last month. “It’s going to be very soon.”