Saudi Aramco had the world’s largest initial public offering when it listed shares on the Saudi stock exchange in December 2019.
The offering raised about $25.6 billion by selling shares on the Tadawul. An additional share-allotment option later increased the total raised to about $29.4 billion, surpassing Alibaba’s 2014 offering.
At its debut, Saudi Aramco was valued at approximately $1.9 trillion, making it one of the world’s most valuable companies by market capitalization. The company is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia and is majority owned by the Saudi government.
The IPO is sometimes confused with the company’s total oil reserves or annual production. Those measures describe the scale of its operations, while market capitalization reflects the stock market value of its publicly traded shares.