Aramco's stock jumped by the end of its trading yesterday (Monday) by 4.68%, to rise by 1.55 riyals, and close at 34.65 riyals, its highest level in half a year.
This comes after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced, yesterday (Sunday), the completion of the transfer of 4% of the total shares of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company – Saudi Aramco from state ownership to the ownership of the Saudi Arabian Investment Company (Sanabel), wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund. .
A monitoring conducted by “Okaz” revealed that the transfer of about 4% of Aramco’s shares, which number about 220 billion shares, will be reflected in the transfer of about 8.8 billion shares, equivalent to a market value of about 289.08 billion riyals. The number of free shares of Aramco before the completion of the transfer process was about 12.79 billion shares (of which 8.8 billion shares were previously disclosed to be transferred to the Public Investment Fund), while another 8.8 billion shares will now be transferred to Sanabel Investment Company, and the number of free shares of Aramco will increase to 21.59 billion shares, equivalent to 9.81% of the company's total shares, bringing the state's ownership of Aramco to about 90.188%.
The weight of free-floating shares in Aramco's TASI index will rise from 19.29% to 28.75% (more than a quarter of the index), but the Tadawul system makes the company's upper limit not exceed 15%.
It is noteworthy that the capital of Aramco amounts to about 75 billion riyals, and Aramco is the highest market value among all stock market companies, and the largest in the TASI index.
Abdul Rahman Al-Misbahi (Jeddah) @ sobhe90