Aramco IPO Retail Offering Fully Covered With One Day to Go - Bloomberg

Aramco IPO Retail Offering Fully Covered With One Day to Go - Bloomberg:

The retail tranche of Saudi Aramco’s initial public offering is fully covered with one day to go after 3.7 million investors applied to buy shares in the world’s biggest oil producer.

The subscription reached 32.6 billion riyals ($8.7 billion), lead manager Samba Capital said in statement. A third of what’s likely to be the world’s largest share sale has been reserved for retail investors, who’ve been targeted by a country-wide advertising campaign and offered larger-than usual loans to finance purchases. 

There may be a last-minute surge before today’s final deadline for applications, but so far the share sale hasn’t been as well subscribed as some other IPOs in the counrty. The book for National Commercial Bank’s 2014 Initial public offering was covered 23 times over. In 2006, 10 million Saudis, about half the kingdom’s adult population, applied to buy shares in the local unit of the Middle East’s biggest property develop, Emaar Properties PJSC.