Aramco’s shares closed up 1.1% yesterday in the first day of trading after its secondary share sale, closing at SAR 28.60, according to market data. The stock saw SAR 42.1 bn worth of trades yesterday, with 1.6 bn shares changing hands across 1.2k transactions at SAR 27.25 a piece, according to Argaam. These shares were deposited yesterday as confirmed by Tadawul.

Pricing: The secondary share sale’s final price was set below expectations at SAR 27.25 per share, pricing its stock in the lower half of its proposed range of SAR 26.7 to SAR 29.0 a share. The pricing indicates that Aramco raised c. USD 11.2 bn, according to our math. This falls just below the USD 12 bn mark that pundits had initially penciled in for the sale.

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Foreign investors were big buyers in the offering, with the majority of the institutional tranche — which accounts for 90% of the shares on offer — allocated to “investors located outside of the Kingdom,” it said in a statement. The follow-on offering saw foreign institutional ownership in the oil giant clock in at a 0.73% stake, the company said in a breakdown of shareholder structure post-allocation.

Meanwhile, local institutional investors own an 0.89% stake in the company, while retail investors’ ownership settles in at a 0.76% stake. Aramco continues to be largely state-owned, with the government and associated entities retaining the vast majority of ownership at a combined 97.62% stake.

Aramco did not provide a breakdown on foreign investors’ nationalities, but media reports have suggested multiple orders for the additional 0.64% stake came in from the US, UK, Hong Kong and Japan.

Background: The transaction comes as the government looks to unlock non-oil sources of income to plug its budget deficit and push bns of USD worth of gigaprojects out of the pipeline. Think massive investments in sports, AI, tourism, and infrastructure. Proceeds from the sale will likely be “funneled to the Public Investment Fund” — which owns a further 16% stake, analysts told Reuters.

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