Saudi Aramco raised $25.6 billion from the world’s biggest initial public offering, closing a deal that became synonymous with the kingdom’s controversial crown prince and his plans to reshape the nation. The state-owned oil giant set the final price of its shares at $8.53, valuing the world’s most profitable company at $1.7 trillion. The size of the IPO topped the previous record of $25 billion by Alibaba Holding Group in 2014. Still, Aramco will become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company once it starts trading, overtaking Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. The last major government privatization, the 2014 IPO of National Commercial Bank, received $83 billion in subscriptions from investors.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 05, 2019 23:15 UTC