Saudi Arabia prepares for Aramco IPO

Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil giant, announced its initial public offering Sunday.

The company intends to list shares on the local stock exchange in Riyadh, and trading is expected to begin in December with reportedly somewhere between 2 percent and 5 percent of its shares being listed. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the launch after nearly four years of delays since the plan was initially brought to the table. Aramco will reportedly next hold investor meetings to get a sense of international and domestic demand and publish a prospectus on Nov. 9.

Right now, it's not entirely clear what the company's value is. Prince Mohammed has it at $2 trillion, but advisers working on the IPO have said that's probably too high for investors, The Wall Street Journal reports, so the target base valuation is reportedly expected to be around $1.7 trillion. But even that could reportedly be a stretch, with some international investors indicating the value at $1.5 trillion. Regardless, it's a big deal.

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"Today is a profoundly important day for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Aramco Chair Yasir al-Rumayyan said at a press conference. The offering is part of the crown prince's vision of diversifying the Saudi economy. Read more at The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.