By Maha El Dahan
DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has placed more than half of an $11.2 billion Aramco share sale with foreign investors, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia has sought to attract international investment to invest tens of billions of dollars in projects to diversify its dependence on oil. However, foreign investment has repeatedly missed targets.
“There have been several requests from the US, UK, Hong Kong and Japan,” one of the sources said.
International demand for the secondary share sale was higher than for Aramco’s 2019 IPO, sources previously told Reuters.
Aramco said on Friday the shares were priced at 27.25 riyals ($7.27) after the company set a price range of 26.70 to 29.00 riyals.
The secondary offering, dubbed Project Bond by the banks involved, took months of planning.
As a result of the transaction, more than 120 new international investors will be added to Aramco, one of the sources said.
“Overall demand for the offering was over $65 billion across blue-chip global institutions and domestic retail offerings,” he said.
Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 is financing ventures as diverse as electric vehicles to building futuristic cities in the desert, mainly through his Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The $925 billion sovereign wealth fund, after scaling back some of its gigantic flagship projects, aims to sharpen its focus to drive the vision forward.
Proceeds from share sales are expected to be channeled into the PIF, sources and analysts said, although the funds could also help plug the kingdom’s budget deficit, which has widened as the price of oil has weakened.
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
