This week will see the onset of full trading activity in the shares of Saudi Arabia’s flagship oil company, Aramco. Through a combination of wooing local retail investors via preferential loans , threatening wealthy Saudis with the sort of treatment they had during their imprisonment in the Ritz Carlton in 2017 , and inveigling the two principal credit ratings agencies to toe the exact Saudi line on the ‘lack of significance’ of the ‘Houthi’ attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, the Saudis have finally been able to sell off a part of Aramco. It may be nearly three years late, only around one third of the original amount intended, have no foreign listing, and be priced to value the entire company at much less than the US$2 trillion that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) had staked his reputation on but it is done. The shares are to be finally […]