Saudi Arabia to sell 1% of Aramco

Saudi Arabia is in negotiations to sell 1% of state oil giant Saudi Aramco to a leading global energy company. The kingdom’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke about this on a Saudi-owned news channel this week.

Saudi Aramco was the world’s largest IPO when it went public in December 2019 and traded about 1.5% of its shares on the local stock exchange, Tadawul.

The prince declared that he does not want to make any promises. Still, there is a discussion about acquiring a 1% stake by a leading global energy company. That will be a great deal to improve Aramco’s sales in the country where this company is based, he said. The prince did not specify the company but said it is from a large country.

He also said there are talks with other firms. Some Aramco shares could be transferred to the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. Some stocks may also be listed on the Saudi market.

Indian shares hiked on solid earnings

Gains in financial and automaker stocks on strong quarterly results supported Indian shares to hit a near three-week high. 

the NSE Nifty 50 index gained 0.71% to 14,757, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.78% to 49,327.30. Last week, both indexes experienced an almost 2% drop. It resulted from investors’ worry over the economic impact of the surge in coronavirus cases and the death toll. In the week to April 23, infections in India totaled 1.2 million, and 8,000 people died. 

At the same time, S&P Global Ratings declared the second wave of the coronavirus in India acts as downside risks to GDP. 

According to Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, the way to limit the viral variants is to prevent the virus from replicating. So the best way to control them is to control the overall amount of disease that we have at the moment.