RIYADH: Investors in Aramco hoping for a payout off the back of surging oil prices have been left disappointed after the Saudi firm announced no extra dividends, Bloomberg reported.
The oil giant posted its third quarter accounts on Sunday, showing its profits more than doubled to SR114.1 billion ($30.4 billion) from a year ago.
The dividend plans remain “vague,” Bank of America analysts wrote last week, while Morgan Stanley analysts think it’s only a matter of time before the story changes.
EFG-Hermes sees “strong potential for the company to opt to pay out a special dividend for 2021,” Yousef Husseini, an analyst at the bank in Cairo, wrote in a note Sunday.
Ensuring Aramco shares are attractive to foreign investors is paramount for Saudi Arabia, as the government owns 98 percent of the company.
The government has indicated it wants to sell more shares in the future, Bloomberg said. A low yield was one of the reasons some foreign investors stayed away from the December 2019 IPO, and back then the yield was even higher, it said.