Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia has decided to halt the local and international initial public offerings (IPOs) for state-run Aramco, Reuters said late on Monday.
This decision came after the king Salman bin Abdulaziz met in mid-June with the ruling family members, bankers, and senior oil executives, including a former Aramco CEO, according to the news agency.
“The king’s interlocutors told him that the IPO, far from helping the kingdom, would undermine it. Their main concern was that an IPO would bring full public disclosure of Aramco’s financial details, the sources said,” the London-based news agency further noted.
On 22 August, the oil-rich kingdom announced that the largest international oil firm stopped plans for its IPO, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, the GCC nation denied reports that the kingdom has backtracked on its plan to float a stake in state-owned Aramco on stock exchanges.
“The government remains committed to the initial public offering (IPO) of Saudi Aramco at a time of its own choosing when conditions are optimum,” Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources said in Thursday statement.
