Narrow set of options ht @ahmed

Sad bankers

Almost 5 million people have applied for shares in Saudi Aramco’s initial public offering with a total value of 47.4 billion riyals as the retail tranche came to an end on November 28, while bids from institutional investors have reached 119 billion riyals so far with few more days to go for them to submit bids until December 4.

This brings the total to 166 billion riyals which means it has been oversubscribed and raised 1.7 times what the government said it wanted, but this is still far less than what we have seen with previous Saudi share sales. The National Commercial Bank IPO in 2016 was covered 23 times over, while 10 million Saudis participated in Emaar IPO in before the stock market crash in 2006.

Only 10.5% of bids came from non-Saudi investors after the company decided not to market the flotation abroad due to lack of appetite from foreign institutional investors over the valuation and other concerns, but Saudi Aramco executives have traveled to Kuwait and UAE as their sovereign wealth funds are expected to invest.Narrow set of options ht @ahmed

OPEC November oil output slips before Aramco IPO, policy meeting - Reuters

OPEC November oil output slips before Aramco IPO, policy meeting - Reuters:

OPEC oil output has fallen in November as Angolan production has slipped due to maintenance and Saudi Arabia has kept a lid on supply to support the market before the initial public offering (IPO) of state-owned Saudi Aramco, a Reuters survey found.

On average, the 14-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has pumped 29.57 million barrels per day (bpd) this month, according to the survey. That is down 110,000 bpd from October’s revised figure.

The survey suggests Saudi Arabia, after resuming normal supply after attacks on facilities in September, is still pumping far less than an OPEC-led supply deal allows. OPEC meets to review the pact on Dec. 5, the same day Aramco is due to announce the final offer price.