Aramco chief says IPO will ‘definitely happen’
Nasser stresses that company has all the elements needed to facilitate a public listing
The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Saudi Aramco will “definitely” happen, the company’s chief executive confirmed yesterday, but added that it is not expected until 2021 after the potential acquisition of Sabic.
Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec). Nasser said the government’s plan is to list Aramco on Saudi’s Tadawul stock exchange, but is yet to decide on whether there will be a dual listing elsewhere.
“There’s a lot of things the government did to facilitate the IPO. We would not have [gone] through all that [only] to have the IPO not happen,” Nasser told reporters in Abu Dhabi.
He added that the company is ready to list, and has all the elements needed to facilitate a public listing. Nasser said that Aramco has done “a lot of work” to prepare to be publicly listed, and that shows the company’s commitment to an IPO. That work includes changing Aramco into a joint stock company, having its oil and gas reserves audited, changes in its board of directors, and changing reforms, among other measures.
But even with those elements, an IPO in 2021 will depend on market conditions at the time, the CEO said.
“What’s happening right now is the potential acquisition of Sabic — the acquisition of PIF’s (Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia) shares in Sabic. Seventy per cent; that’s how much they (PIF) own, and that needs to be completed first before you can list Saudi Aramco,” Nasser said.
“That will take some time until we get the agreement with PIF, then we get regulatory agreements, antitrust requirements in different countries, and you need to reflect
that in the balance sheet for at least a year before you can list Saudi Aramco,” he added.
He said that was why the government said the listing would happen in 2021 instead of the initially-announced 2019.
Discussing the potential acquisition of Sabic, Nasser said that Aramco is aiming to strengthen its presence in the petrochemicals segment, and needs a “significant acquisition” in order to do so. He said that such a deal would allow Aramco to be a global leader in both energy and petrochemicals, and to balance its upstream and downstream capabilities.