Saudi Aramco shares opened up 10% on their Riyadh stock market debut on Wednesday, closing in on the $2 trillion valuation long sought by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Reuters informs.
The shares opened at 35.2 riyal ($9.39) apiece, 10% above their initial public offering price (IPO) of 32 riyals.
Saudi Aramco raised a record $25.6 billion in its IPO last week, giving it a market value of around $1.7 trillion.
Saudi Aramco is comfortably the world’s largest listed company, although it will have one of the smallest “free floats” of publicly tradeable shares, at just 1.5%.
The flotation, a major challenge for the Riyadh stock exchange, propels the bourse into the world’s top 10 by value of listed companies.
Saudi Arabia relied on mainly domestic and regional investors to buy Aramco shares after lukewarm interest from abroad.
The $25.6 billion of proceeds beat Chinese tech firm Alibaba’s $25 billion listing in 2014.
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