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Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

economist.com

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#31

2 trillion market cap? Corrupt russian oil and gas companies trade at 4x earnings. At that valuation with annual earnings of $90 billion aramco should be valued at more like $360 billion. Sorry, but that's the penalty you pay for being a corrupt journalist murdering autocrat.

The difference is that Saudi oil reserves basically cost nothing to extract. Maybe $5 a barrel. You literally poke a hole in the ground and oil bubbles out.

That makes Aramco significantly less risky than your typical oil company. Even if oil goes to $25 a barrel, the company will still be solvent, and even profitable. Mismanagement (like Pemex) is basically impossible under these conditions. It also means less capital reinvestment is necessary, so more dividends for the shareholders.

Less market risk, less operational risk, higher cash yield. All those things drive up the valuation multiple.

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#32

The original oil well is probably the ultimate example of how the best ideas often sound completely insane. The basic story is that the guy pitched a bunch of VCs in New Haven in the 1850s and got laughed out of the room for saying that he thought the stuff inside whales was buried under a mountain in Pennsylvania.

Like most of those stories, it's likely exaggerated nonsense.

Everyone knew there was tons of oil in Pennsylvannia. Europeans knew of the oil-mineral since the 1600s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Well#History

There were rivers of oil seeping out of the ground in pennsylvannia, ohio, etc. It was viewed mostly as a nuisance more than anything.

What the "VCs" laughed at was the idea of oil replacing whale blubber as a light source.

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#33
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Tranche B specifically mention Saudi female divorcees? Is the implication that married and single women aren't allowed to purchase shares, or am I misunderstanding?

A married female is the property of her husband, therefore the investment is being made by a non-saudi national if she is married to a foreign national. Just your everyday Saudi sexism.

A married woman is not the property of her husband. Stop spreading lies and hate.

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#34
From my understanding, the high valuation of Saudi Aramco does not seem to stem from them being the best in to industry for processing oil, but rather, from their access to the richest and cheapest source of oil. This license is their source of making huge profits - i.e. the difference between the cost price versus the market price.

To the best of my understanding, Saudi Aramco has no ownership of the oil fields but merely manages them on behalf of KSA. So is there anything impeding KSA from simply selling oil field access to someone else than Saudi Aramco after the IPO, and in effect, eliminating Saudi Aramco's source of profits?

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#35

From my understanding, the high valuation of Saudi Aramco does not seem to stem from them being the best in to industry for processing oil, but rather, from their access to the richest and cheapest source of oil. This license is their source of making huge profits - i.e. the difference between the cost price versus the market price. To the best of my understanding, Saudi Aramco has no ownership of the oil fields but…

Why would you sell your goose that lays golden eggs?

Even if you think that the goose might be getting older and less fertile, it doesn't make sense.

It only makes sense if you know when the goose is gonna run out of eggs. And in this case I'm not sure anyone knows.

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A married female is the property of her husband, therefore the investment is being made by a non-saudi national if she is married to a foreign national. Just your everyday Saudi sexism.

A married woman is not the property of her husband. Stop spreading lies and hate.

[deleted]

Re: Saudi Aramco: The message from the world’s biggest and wildest IPO

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A married female is the property of her husband, therefore the investment is being made by a non-saudi national if she is married to a foreign national. Just your everyday Saudi sexism.

A married woman is not the property of her husband. Stop spreading lies and hate.

[deleted]
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