Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi government’s ownership in the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) stands at 98.21%, as shown by the data of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

Aramco offered 1.5% of its shares through an initial public offering (IPO), equivalent to 3 billion shares, of which two billion shares were set for institutions and another billion shares for individual investors through a retail offering.

An analysis by Mubasher shows that the company has allocated 0.059% of its shares for employee incentives.

The oil giant previously announced that the government will sell shares valued at $1 billion (SAR 3.75 billion) at the final price, to the company to use it in the incentives program.

Meanwhile, the stake of Goldman Sachs Saudi Arabia, the stabilising manager, amounted to 0.225%.

In order to allow the stabilising manager to carry out its duty, Aramco allowed Goldman Sachs to purchase an additional 450 million shares, which is equivalent to 15% of the basic IPO volume.

Meanwhile, proceeds from the IPO rose to $29.4 billion after the company exercised an option to sell 15% more shares, the Head of Investment Banking at National Commercial Bank (NCB) was quoted as saying.

NCB Head of Investment Banking, Wassim Al Khatib, said that greenshoe option, which grants the underwriter the right to sell more shares, was implemented, Al Arabiya reported.

Non-Saudi investors accounted for 23% of the institutional tranche of the IPO, Al Khatib noted.

The Saudi Public Pension Agency received an allocation equivalent to 11.5% of the Aramco IPO institutional tranche, al-Khatib said.

Aramco set its share price at SAR 32 ($8.53), which brought the IPO’s total value to $25.6 billion, making it the largest in history.

Trading the shares of Aramco on Tadawul is set to begin on Wednesday 11 December 2019.