Saudi Arabian OilCompany (Saudi Aramco) has announced the end of the book-building periodand the setting of the final offer price for the offering, at SR 32 for ashare. Saudi Aramco said in a statement that the offering size (excluding anyexercise of the purchase option) is 3,000,000,000 shares, comprising 1.5% ofthe company's share capital.
The offering processgenerated subscriptions by institutional subscribers of SR397 billion/USD106billion, which, together with the total demand from individual investors in theoffering, equals SR446 billion/USD119 billion, or 465% of the total offershares (assuming no exercise of the purchase option). The company said that theoffering amount is SR96 billion/USD25.6 billion (assuming no exercise of thepurchase option). The offer shares allocated to individual investors comprise33.3% of the offer shares (which is equivalent to 0.5% of the company's sharecapital), while the offer shares allocated to institutional subscriberscomprise 66.7% of the offer shares (which is equivalent to 1.0% of the company'sshare capital), (in each case, assuming no exercise of the purchase option).
Saudi Aramco pointedout that the selling shareholder has granted the stabilizing manager a purchaseoption to allow the stabilizing manager to cover short positions resulting fromany over-allotments, pursuant to which the stabilizing manager may purchasefrom the selling shareholder up to a maximum of 450,000,000 additional shares,representing 15% of the offering size at the final offer price.
The purchase option willbe exercisable in whole or in part upon notice by the stabilizing manager, atany time on or before 30 calendar days after the commencement of trading of theshares on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). The companystressed that in the event that the purchase option is exercised in full, thetotal offering size will be 3,450,000,000 shares, representing an offer amountof SR110.4 billion/USD29.4 billion.
The company said thatthe key offering dates are: deadline for payment of the subscription funds byinstitutional subscribers: 11/4/1441H (corresponding to 8 December 2019), dateof refund of excess subscription monies (if any) to individual investors15/4/1441H (corresponding to 12 December 2019), trading of the shares isexpected to commence after all relevant legal requirements and procedures havebeen completed.
