Saudi Aramco boss says listing will take place within three years
The boss of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Aramco said today that its long-awaited float was still in the pipeline.
Chief executive Amin Nasser said the initial public offering (IPO) would “certainly” happen when conditions are right.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Nasser said crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman and energy minister Khalid al-Falih were aiming at a listing within three years.
"I think his royal highness and his excellency, the minister, talked about 2021. At the end of the day the government will decide when the market is good," he said to CNBC.
The float of Saudi Aramco, which generated excitement in bourses around the world, was first expected to take place in 2017, but has been progressively delayed to 2018, 2019 and now 2021.
The $2trn (£1.56bn) price tag led to competition between major financial centres, including London, New York and Hong Kong, to land the mammoth listing.
Nasser said the amount of work done in the background to prepare for the listing had been overlooked.
"We have a new concession agreement, the reserves were audited, the board was changed, there was a new tax regime signed with the government. There are a lot of reforms happening to list Saudi Aramco," he said.
Aramo recently said it was buying a stake in Sabic, a Saudi-state-owned chemicals business.
Nasser said Aramco was still in discussion to purchase Sabic and that the deal would further delay any float.
Saudi Arabia has been hitting headlines for the wrong reasons recently after the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month.
The murder led to pressure on western companies and governments not to do business with Saudi Arabia and not to attend last month’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) investment forum.
However, Nasser said "During FII, we signed $34bn of deals with our partners, so the appetite is there."