State-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco’s initial public offering will be the biggest in history, but will fall short of the towering $2 trillion valuation long sought by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Aramco priced its IPO at 32 riyals ($8.53) per share, the top of its indicative range, the company said in a statement, raising $25.6 billion and beating Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s record $25 billion listing in 2014.
At that level, Aramco has a market valuation of $1.7 trillion, comfortably overtaking Apple Inc as the world’s most valuable listed firm.
Aramco did not say when shares would start trading on the Saudi stock market but two sources said it was scheduled for Dec. 11.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple, with a current valuation of $1.2 trillion, has some five days left to enjoy the throne. But, the market is a funny thing; Apple could retake the crown somewhere down the line, thanks to breakthrough new products and natural services growth.
Apple has a very bright long-term future. But oil…? Will Aramco even start off at $1.7T?
Oil stocks are very unpopular with investors. Exxon and BP have been in the tank for a decade despite excellent profits and strong dividends and limited competition. Also, would you want to own something the majority of which is held by a Wahabbi extremist sect?
So, Aramco will be < 2% publicly owned ($25.6 B out of $1.7 T) and > 91% government owned (depending on how you add up the non government ownership, many of those investors are government institutions too), but because that small percentage is traded publicly it’s still considered a public company.
Personally, I don’t put something like that in the same class as Apple.
For me, I put it in the same class as the many of the big European aerospace firms that have significant European government ownership. A government can subsidize IR&D or other development efforts or give sole source contracts to make the company profitable any time they want to do so. If Apple had been 98% owned by a government it is likely it never would have gone through thte dark days of the 90s. Just think, in a crazy scenario, if the U.S. Government owned 91% of Apple and mandated that the default computer, tablet, phone, and watch sales were Apple only. That does not seem like a very “public” company to me.
And so it should. After all, oil should be more valuable to people on this planet than personal-tech products. I’m fairly certain oil is more important to me than any smartphone.
Anyway, whatever happened to all those financial geniuses who used to talk about the “law of large numbers” and how some companies shouldn’t be worth as much as they are now. Apple and Microsoft certainly broke that “law” and Saudi Aramco will likely obliterate that “law.” I guess those so-called financial geniuses have disappeared into the woodwork once investors realized those idiots were talking out of their buttholes. Since there was never actually such a “law” restricting the value of company market caps, I often wondered why it was talked about so much when mentioning Apple’s growing market cap a couple of years back.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/market-cap
Will Apple ever be worth more than $1.5T? I can’t even imagine that happening, but I didn’t actually think Apple would ever be worth $1T in my lifetime, so I suppose anything is possible. It’s possible an acquisition could quickly boost Apple’s value, but I couldn’t imagine what company Apple could buy to do that. It appears Apple will do quite well for the holiday quarter, so for at least a bit longer, Apple’s market cap will continue to rise.
Apple will be worth $2 trillion within a decade, at most.
Still hard for me to grasp. ONLY about $800M more to go for $2T. 🙂
I think it will all depend on the strength of the economy and not Apple alone. Surely, anyone whoever wanted an iPhone will have already have one. Same goes for AR glasses.
I do not appreciate my vital inner workings being extracted by rapacious companies seeking to destroy the precarious ecology and environment that I spent millions of years creating…for the benefit of all life.
I thought nothing could top that. It was all going so well until a couple of hundred years ago.
What was I thinking?
Dear Pagan:
God, through the power of His Word—which took on human flesh and dwelt among us—is the one and only Creator.
Maybe their the same thing?
Not remotely the same thing. Confusing the Creator with the creation is rank paganism.
Pagans, gods, space fairies…they’re all your invention and irrelevant. Homo Sapiens is a Johnny-cum-lately, seemingly intent on destroying my life’s work which is a bit depressing.
But hey. When you dumb religious space fairy worshipers have unleashed the savage forces of nature at my command by poisoning my atmosphere, there will be nowhere to hide. Your riches, your faith, your entitlement…. nothing will help your survival chances. Your anecdotal fictional tales of famine, floods, tempest and pestilence will be as nothing compared with what is to come.
I of course will endure and evolve, something your species has problems with.
Dear Planet Earth:
You’re full of fossil fuels, and we’re going to continue using the hell out of them, just as the Lord intended.
Earth shall pass away when God decrees it—and He WILL decree it.
Dear Liberals:
Your lack of belief in your Creator will not be your Get-out-of-hell-free card. God exists regardless of your arrogant godlessness—you can’t wish Him away—and you will stand before Him at your bleak hour judgement. Moreover, you can’t take your phaggy Prius with you.
Are you just pulling our legs? Have you actually read that book of genocide, rape, stoning children for disobedience, rape, genocide, a bit more genocide, bad drug trips and, worst of all, rampant silliness?
Your attempt to gaslight me was ineffective. Moreover, for more than 1900 years people like you have been trying to promote a superficial and false view of Holy Scripture. In case you were wondering, it hasn’t worked. You’re trying to fight a war against your Creator, and you can’t win. Gods Word will stand for eternity while yours will rightfully disperse like meaningless vapor into the wind. You’ll never understand because you are a God hater, and for that, your reward awaits you on Judgement Day. And it doesn’t matter if you believe that day is coming. It will come without your acknowledgement, and you will reap the whirlwind. Enjoy!
I know you think that you’re a good person, but you’re a lousy one. An insufferable degenerate with a dead soul and a gnarled conscience. That’s why you try so hard to compensate.
Only Republicans are true believers and the chosen ones to dispense his word?
That’s a bit presumptuous and convenient in a fascist way, totally delusional, anti-democratic and surely unchristian in a frightening form of argument.
Absurd and dangerous.
You win today’s Darwin Award. Congratulations.
Darwin is in hell.
American education…you’re welcome to it. So all other religions are bogus and their followers going to a hell they don’t believe in since they think you are the one going to a special place of damnation? There’s something wrong with that equation, you can’t all be right. Just maybe you’re delusional.
Some analyst just gave Apple a price target of $265 but Apple is already at $270. Wow… talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Never investing anything owned by the State.
Or for that matter, a state that executes it’s own citizens for dissent. You buy into them and you’ve got blood on your hands.
as an aapl investor I’m not so concerned about who has the largest market cap.
What is more important is the stock Growth Rate. How much it increases every year.
Also with buybacks, the number of shares decline and that negatively affects market cap but if stock price moves up for an investors it’s irrelevant.
(what i’m saying is that a smaller market cap company where the stock rises 30% a year is better than a bigger cap that rises 5%)
Gains is better than bragging rights.
You have to ask yourself WHY is Saudi Arabia selling part of their oil business? Because they know that the world oil economy is a gravy train that cannot go on forever, and they want to cash out before the world’s billionaires figure this out.
Rising CO2 levels will force countries to limit (or even ban) gasoline-powered vehicles within a generaiton. The market for oil will, eventually, crumble. Saudi Arabia knows it. I just hope whoever is investing my retirement funds knows it too.