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Saudi Aramco Completes Secondary Public Offering of Common Stock

This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP)
This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP)
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Saudi Aramco Completes Secondary Public Offering of Common Stock

This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP)
This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP)

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) announced on Tuesday the completion of the secondary public offering of common shares in the company.
Aramco president and chief executive Eng. Amin bin Hassan Nasser explained that this offering of shares achieves the goals of diversifying and expanding Saudi Aramco’s shareholder base by attracting strong participation from new international and local investors, which in turn further enhances the liquidity of the shares, SPA reported.

He welcomed new shareholders from all over the world, expressing his pride and gratitude for the continued trust of local institutions and individual investors.
“The success of this offering demonstrates our proven record in operational and financial performance since the record initial public offering (IPO) in 2019,” Nasser said. “It also reflects the growing international awareness of our competitive strengths and our long-term growth strategy across an expanding global portfolio. It also highlights confidence in our ability to successfully execute our business across the energy value chain in upstream, refining, chemicals, integrated marketing, and new energy sources, including low-carbon projects.”
Through the offering, 1.545 billion Saudi Aramco shares were sold, representing about 0.64% of the company’s issued shares, as it is considered the largest secondary offering in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa since 2000, and the largest share offering in the Middle East region after the company’s 2019 IPO.
The final offering price for individual subscribers and institutional subscribers was SAR 27.25 per share.

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IMF Says International Community Should Provide Grants to Lebanon

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs, after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon October 25, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs, after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon October 25, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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IMF Says International Community Should Provide Grants to Lebanon

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs, after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon October 25, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs, after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon October 25, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

The international community should work to end the conflict in the Middle East and provide grants to Lebanon, the head of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department has said.

Jihad Azour spoke to AFP in Washington, where the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are currently taking place.

In updated economic estimates, the Fund slightly downgraded its outlook for economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa to 2.1 percent this year, while maintaining its 4.0 percent growth outlook for 2025.

However, these estimates do not take into account the economic impact of the recent escalation of conflict in southern Lebanon, where Israel has invaded to fight Hezbollah.

Azour, a former Lebanese finance minister, noted that the most severely affected places, including Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, were facing a "huge humanitarian problem" which has devastated their economies.

"You have massive loss in output, you have a massive destruction in infrastructure, and you have a huge set of needs for additional spending, for shelter, for health and so on," he said.

"We expect that growth will be negative in those cases, and we expect that the recovery would take longer to materialize," he added.

The IMF has suspended its forecasts for the Lebanese economy, citing an "unusually high degree of uncertainty." But a recent United Nations Development report estimated that the country's GDP would be 9.2 percent smaller as a "direct consequence" of the conflict.

"You have massive destruction of infrastructure in a large region, which is the south, and mass destruction of livelihood, because this is an agricultural region that was severely affected," Azour said, adding that almost 20 percent of Lebanon's population had been displaced.

"We encourage the international community, we encourage the friends of Lebanon, to provide grants," he continued, calling on the international community "to put its utmost effort in order to solve the problem, in order to reduce the suffering of people."

For countries indirectly affected by the conflict, like Jordan and Egypt, the impact of Israel's ongoing military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon has been felt differently.

While Egypt has been hit hard by a 70 percent fall in revenues from ships traversing the Suez Canal, Jordan's economy has suffered from a steep decline in tourism, Azour said.