Russia eyes Saudi Aramco IPO investment

A Russian and Chinese joint investment fund, working in conjunction with several major Russian banks, has made moves to take part in the much awaited Saudi Aramco initial public offering, according to a sovereign Russian investment fund head.

With Saudi Arabia planning to sell a stake of around 5% in what has been projected to be a record-breaking IPO, several other Russian groups in Russia were said to be interested in picking up Aramco shares, Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in Riyadh on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg.

"Not only this, but we have a Russia-China investment fund, and through that Russia-China investment fund we see a major interest in the Aramco IPO from a number of leading Chinese institutions,” Dmitriev said.

"We see significant interest to invest in the Aramco IPO from Russia, from China, and we believe that this is very good for, once again, thinking jointly about oil."

Russia and Saudi Arabia, the two largest oil-producing countries in the world, put aside their differences to form an alliance as they attempted to support crude prices despite increased output from US shale drillers, engineering a global accord to dial down output until the end of the year.

Aramco was also set to make "a big announcement" regarding a partnership in a liquefied natural gas business between itself and a Russian company later on Wednesday.

Aramco's IPO was viewed as the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia's plan to wean its economy off oil, with the nation's government estimating the share sale could see the company valued at around $2trn.