Saudi Aramco had the largest initial public offering in history when it raised about $25.6 billion in 2019.
The Saudi Arabian oil company listed shares on the Tadawul stock exchange in Riyadh in December 2019. The offering sold a small percentage of the company, but its enormous valuation made the proceeds larger than those of any previous IPO at the time.
Saudi Aramco increased the offering size through an over-allotment option, bringing the total proceeds to approximately $29.4 billion. That figure surpassed Alibaba’s 2014 offering, which had previously held the record.
An IPO’s proceeds are the money raised from selling newly issued shares, while market capitalization is the value of all publicly traded shares. Those figures are related but not identical, a distinction often missed in comparisons of corporate size.