One minute after trading, Aramco’s market value increased by $180bn

One minute after trading, Aramco's market value increased by $180bn.
One minute after trading, Aramco's market value increased by $180bn.

Saudi Aramco's shares opened at SAR35.2 ($9.39) per share on its trading debut on Wednesday, giving the oil giant a valuation of $1.88tn.

Saudi Aramco's shares begin trading domestically after the energy behemoth raised $25.6bn in the world's biggest initial public offering.

Aramco has earlier priced its IPO at SAR32 ($8.53) per share, the high end of the target range.

In so doing, it surpasses the $25bn raised by Chinese retail giant Alibaba in its 2014 Wall Street debut.

The sale of 1.5 percent of the firm, or three billion shares, is part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 that aims to diversify the Kingdom's economy and ease its dependence on oil.

Riyadh's Tadawul stock exchange also said it will hold an opening auction for Aramco shares for an hour from 9:30 (06:30 GMT).

Afterwards, continuous trading with price changes limited to plus or minus 10 percent to go on.

The company said Friday it could exercise a "greenshoe" option, selling additional shares to bring the total raised up to $29.4bn.

The market launch puts the oil behemoth's value at $1.7tn, far ahead of other firms in the trillion-dollar club, including Apple and Microsoft.

Two-thirds of the shares were offered to institutional investors.

Saudi government bodies accounted for 13.2 percent of the institutional tranche, investing around $2.3bn, according to lead IPO manager SambaCapital.

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