The Aramco IPO story seems more and more to be a line from the world famous story of “Scheherazade and 1001 nights”. As the famous princess needed to tell stories to save her life from the wrath of Sultan Shahryar, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) repeats the Aramco IPO story to quell possible opposition inside his Kingdom. Since more than three years, the global financial world has shown a healthy appetite to take a share in Aramco, the world’s largest and most profitable oil and gas company. Western, Asian and Russian bankers and institutional investors have been scrambling to get a piece of the action, but were hit by major delays, changes in plans or outright miscalculations by Saudi counterparts. Still, whenever the time is right, MBS wakes up the market by reiterating that the IPO is going to happen. Since a couple of weeks, new dates […]