American financial institution Goldman Sachs has bought a slice of Saudi Aramco’s $10bn credit facility, in hope of bagging a role in the landmark listing of the oil giant, global news agency Reuters has reported.
Goldman Sachs purchased a portion of the $10bn revolving credit facility that Aramco signed with a number of banks in 2015. Two of the sources told Reuters that the company purchased several million dollars in the secondary market from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group.
The bank was not part of the original list of 27 banks on the credit facility, which included other American, European, Asian and regional banks including Citigroup, JPMorgan, HSBC and Bank of China.
Aramco plans to raise $100bn through the listing of 5% of the company in Saudi Arabia and one or more overseas location.
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and HSBC have been hired as international financial advisors for Aramco’s initial public offering, Reuters reported earlier this year.
Two of the sources told Reuters Goldman is expected to join the trio as a global coordinator and bookrunner for the facility when those positions are finalised.
The bank is moving to enlarge its presence in the kingdom. It recently applied to Saudi Arabia’s capital markets regulator for a license to trade equities in the kingdom, Reuters reported in June.
The sources said Goldman had been “shopping around” among other banks on the facility to ask if they wanted to exit the loan.
One of the sources described the pricing on the facility as “very fine” and difficult for some lenders to make money from, but adding that it was still attractive to those banks looking to build a strong relationship with Aramco.
