Hong Kong bourse joins regulators to fight to host world’s biggest IPO

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said it is working with local and mainland authorities to fight to get Saudi Arabia’s national oil giant, Aramco, to list in Hong Kong in what would be the biggest initial public offering in history.

“For a giant company like Saudi Aramco, the stock exchange alone would not be able to fight for its listing in Hong Kong. We are working with the Hong Kong and central governments and all related authorities to try our best to fight for its listing here,” said Charles Li Xiaojia, chief executive of HKEX, which operates the local bourse.

“We are working very hard on it and we welcome Saudi Aramco to choose to list here in whatever format it prefers. Its listing here would be good for China, enabling it to play a more important role in the international resources market.”

Addressing reporters after the bourse’s annual general meeting on Wednesday, Li said if Hong Kong was in a position to launch the “IPO connect” scheme at the same time as the Aramco listing, it would provide an additional incentive for the oil leviathan to list here. HKEX is working with Hong Kong and mainland regulators on a link which would allow international investors to subscribe to newly listed A-shares, while mainlanders could subscribe to IPOs in Hong Kong.

The existing stock connects between HKEX and the two stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen only allow investors to do cross border trading in companies already listed.

“It would be the perfect match to launch the IPO connect and the Saudi Aramco IPO at the same time,” he said.