Saudi Aramco became the largest company ever to complete an initial public offering in 2019.
Saudi Aramco began trading on the Saudi Exchange in December 2019. Its offering raised about $25.6 billion, and the company later exercised an option that increased the total to about $29.4 billion, making it the largest IPO at the time.
The oil company was partially listed while the Saudi government retained the overwhelming majority of its shares. On its first trading day, Saudi Aramco’s market capitalization reached approximately $1.88 trillion, briefly placing it among the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.
The IPO was larger than Alibaba’s 2014 offering, which had previously held the record. IPO size measures money raised from shares sold to investors; it is not identical to the company’s total market capitalization after listing.