Aramco IPO expected to transform global stock market

Dubai

MONEY managers in the Middle East are confident the sale of government-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co this year will shake up the global stock market with a record initial public offering that gives the world's biggest company a valuation of about US$1.5 trillion.

"People focus on Aramco as being the key thing," said Salman Bajwa, chief executive officer of Dubai-based Emirates NBD Asset Management, which has US$4.8 billion of assets.

"In our eyes, it is just one of the several major changes taking place. We have landmark reforms going in the social, economic and markets space. The Aramco IPO will be the confirmation that one phase of structural reforms in the markets space has been successfully completed" because "there are going to be other IPOs, many of state-owned entiti…