Saudi Aramco IPO unlikely to require rule changes

Saudi Aramco’s planned flotation is unlikely to require any major changes to Saudia Arabia’s securities rules, the vice chairman of the kingdom’s market regulator said. The kingdom’s state oil giant is targeting 2018 for what is expected to be the world’s biggest ever initial public offering, with a listing on both its home exchange and a foreign market among the options being discussed.

The move is part of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious plans to diversify its economy away from oil, under the banner of Vision 2030, which includes a greater involvement of the private sector and improving the efficiency of state-owned companies.

Should a dual listing happen, some work might be needed involving the management of shares between two markets, such as the mechanics on the sharing of information on trades, Mohammed bin Abdullah Elkuwaiz of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) told reporters on the sidelines of a conference yesterday. Saudi Arabia has never before had a dual listing involving a company listed on its bourse, which is known as the Tadawul.

“If there is a decision to list in another exchange, whether it is Aramco or any other company, there would be something that will need to be done, but most of this is more on the operations side not the regulatory side,” he said. Ultimately it will depend on the structure which Aramco decides to employ on its listing, but from what the CMA is anticipating there would be no need for additional rule changes, Elkuwaiz added. — Reuters

US dollar down against KD to 0.304

The exchange rate of the US dollar went down yesterday against the Kuwaiti dinar to reach KD 0.304 while the rate of the euro rose to KD 0.327 compared with Monday, said the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK). The CBK said that the rate of the pound sterling went up to KD 0.388, the same case with Swiss Franc which stood at KD 0.302.

Weakness in the Turkish lira could start to drive up prices and knock the central bank off its targets in the first quarter of next year, but the impact will depend on the pace of economic activity, Governor Murat Cetinkaya said yesterday. At a news conference on the central bank’s monetary and exchange rate policy for 2017, Cetinkaya said the impact of forex volatility on inflation had so far been limited, but said the upwards risks to prices had increased. The lira has hit a series of record lows in recent weeks, hit by a resurgent dollar as well as uncertainty about the outlook for Turkey’s domestic politics and security. The bank’s rate hike last month, its first in almost three years, has done little to ease the pain.