Saudi Aramco’s December 2019 IPO was the largest ever by funds raised at the time.
Saudi Aramco sold shares on the Saudi Stock Exchange, known as Tadawul, in an offering that raised about $25.6 billion. The company later exercised an overallotment option, bringing the total to about $29.4 billion. That exceeded Alibaba’s 2014 offering, which had previously held the record.
The IPO was part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program, which sought to diversify the country’s economy and reduce dependence on oil revenue. Saudi Aramco remained majority-owned by the Saudi government after the listing, so the offering did not represent a full privatization.
The company’s market value briefly reached about $2 trillion soon after trading began. The IPO record is separate from the market-capitalization record: funds raised measure newly sold shares, while market capitalization values the entire listed company.