RIYADH — Saudi Aramco announced on Sunday that the Kingdom's government has set a date for the transfer of free shares to the investment portfolios of individual Saudi investors. Saudi Arabia, which is the oil company's seller shareholder, set the date for the transfers on Saturday, July 25, 2020. Saudi Aramco said that the eligibility period for entitlement to receive bonus shares (180 days) had ended at the close of trading on Sunday, June 7, 2020. Eligible Saudi retail bonus investors, who continuously and uninterruptedly hold offer shares the date on which Aramco's shares debuted on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) until the end of trading on June 7 (the end of the bonus shares holding period), will be entitled to receive 1 share for every 10 allocated offer shares, provided that the number of shares does not exceed 100 bonus shares. These bonus shares will be allocated from the shares owned by the Saudi government (the Selling Shareholder). According to the IPO prospectus, Saudi Arabian retail investors that hold their shares for a minimum of 180 days, or six months, will be eligible for a 10 percent discount through the allocation of additional bonus shares. On December 2019, Aramco completed the retail portion of its IPO. It was 1.48 times oversubscribed with SR47.4 billion ($12.64 billion) in orders. Saudi Aramco, one of the largest companies in the world, is in the process of putting a portion of its ownership into public trading through an initial public offering (IPO).
