Saudi Aramco became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company at its 2019 IPO.
Saudi Aramco began trading on the Saudi Stock Exchange, Tadawul, on December 11, 2019. Its initial public offering sold a 1.5% stake, and the company’s shares briefly gave it a market capitalization of about $2 trillion, making it the largest public listing at that time.
The company is formally known as Saudi Arabian Oil Company and is majority owned by the Saudi government. It operates across oil exploration, production, refining, chemicals, and related energy activities. Its enormous reserves and production capacity underpin its valuation.
Saudi Aramco’s IPO was smaller than the full company because only a limited portion of its shares was offered to investors. This is a common source of confusion: the value of the listed stake is not the same as the total market capitalization of the whole company.