Saudi Aramco had the largest initial public offering in history when it listed in 2019.
The company raised about $25.6 billion in its initial offering on the Saudi Stock Exchange, making it the largest IPO at the time. An additional share option later increased the total proceeds to about $29.4 billion.
Saudi Aramco's listing gave public investors access to a small portion of one of the world's most important oil producers. The Saudi government remained the dominant shareholder after the offering.
An IPO's proceeds are different from market capitalization. Proceeds measure money raised by selling shares, while market capitalization measures the market value of all publicly traded equity. A company can therefore have a market cap many times larger than its IPO proceeds.