Saudi Arabia has scrapped its plans to list shares of the state-owned energy giant Aramco on stock exchanges, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
The team of IPO financial advisers had also been disbanded, added the report, which the agency attributed to "sources."
The public offering was poised to be the largest ever.
With the reported IPO scrapping, the kingdom will no longer seek to publicly list shares on its domestic stock market, the Tadawul, or on foreign exchanges, several sources told Reuters.
Sabic acquisition
Bloomberg, meanwhile, reported that the world's biggest oil company is focusing on buying a strategic stake in chemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) instead, putting work on its potential initial public offering on hold, according to people familiar with the matter.
While the move will further delay the IPO, it does not mean the planned share sale is formally canceled, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
Aramco, as the company is known, wrote to some but not all of its advisers on the IPO and asked them to suspend work for now, one of the people said.
Aramco declined to comment.
The Reuters report about the Aramco IPO scrapping of the domestic and international listing was based on four unidentified industry sources.
