Saudi Aramco exercises over allotment option

The proceeds from Saudi Aramco's record initial public offering have risen to $29.4 billion after the oil company exercised an option to sell 15% more stock, an executive at one of the banks leading the deal told Al Arabiya news channel

Wassim Al Khatib, head of investment banking at the investment arm of Saudi Arabia's biggest bank, National Commercial Bank , said the state-controlled oil giant had exercised the so-called over-allotment option.

Aramco sold $25.6 billion of shares at 32 riyals each, the top of the range at which they were marketed, and the company had orders for $119 billion of stock. About 4.9 million individual investors, almost 15 per cent of the kingdom’s population, applied for the shares. Saudi Arabia sold only 1.5 per cent of the company’s capital in the IPO

“I see further upside to the stock after listing due to the fact that investors will be chasing the stock to complete their exposure, since the deal was oversubscribed,” said Ali El Adou, head of asset management at Daman Investiments in Dubai