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Saudi oil giant Aramco REUTERS / Hamad I Mohammed

The action of the oil giant Saudi Aramco soared by 10% for its debut on the stock market in the financial center of Riyadh. The company makes the biggest IPO in history.

Saudi oil giant Aramco made its debut on Wednesday at the Riyadh Stock Exchange. For Saudi Arabia, it is the largest IPO in history, surpassing that of Alibaba, the Chinese specialist in online commerce, conducted four years ago.

The share price gained 3.2 riyals (the equivalent of 0.75 euro cent) in just a few seconds after Aramco's CEO, Amin Nasser, rang the bell. the debut of the company on the stock market this morning. This now brings its value to 35.2 riyals, or 8.5 euros. This 10% increase continued until the close of trade, with Aramco climbing ahead of Apple and Microsoft.

A success for the oil giant

With this rating, the company achieves a real success, said Francis Perrin, associate researcher at the Policy Center for New South Rabat and research director at IRIS in Paris. " This IPO is the largest in history and a record in stockmarketing only 1.5 % of the capital, not the 5 % that had been planned in the original Aramco project from 2016 " .

This surge of 10% brings Saudi Aramco's implicit market valuation to nearly $ 1,880 billion. " We are certainly not quite at the level of the $ 2 trillion mentioned three years ago by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but we are still on a very good figure, " said Francis Perrin.

Saudi Aramco's historical IPO is also a record in terms of market capitalization globally, including in relation to the digital giants, the famous GAFAM.

Diversifying the economy of Saudi Arabia

" This IPO is important for the Saudi kingdom and for Mohammed bin Salman since his goal is to help finance the economic transition of the kingdom, the so-called" 2030 vision "of Saudi Arabia, " Francis recalls. Perrin.

But for that it takes a lot of money and to achieve economic diversification is not only to have capital, " but it does not only depend on Saudi Aramco, " said the researcher associated with the Policy Center for the New South in Rabat.

The revenues generated by Saudi Aramco's IPO are expected to be injected into infrastructure megaprojects in which the Saudi kingdom has launched, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, particularly in the areas of tourism and tourism. entertainment.