Aramco Stock Soars Limit Up In Debut After Saudis Force Locals To Buy

Is Jamie Dimon about to get the old bonesaw for leaving $180BN on the table?

Saudi Arabia's oil company Aramco soared 10% limit up on its first day of trading, reaching a valuation of $1.88 trillion, higher than any other publicly traded company in the world. This means that after pricing its IPO at $1.7 trillion, Jamie Dimon left about $180 billion on the table, which will hardly impress the Crown Prince.

The record valuation reflects an oversubscribed book of mostly local investors who bought shares on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange after they were forced by Riyadh to pump the stock. 

Aramco only sold a tiny 1.5% sliver in the company, meaning that the kingdom and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) could easily manipulate the price with such a small fraction of the stock public. Aramco listed on the Tadawul exchange because of other international exchanges and their investors found it hard to value the oil company near the $2 trillion levels. 

"They have had to launch the IPO on their own stock exchange as the valuation was unlikely to be achieved elsewhere," said John Colley, associate dean at Warwick Business School in the U.K, who spoke with Reuters. 

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