Bank of America hired former CEO of Swicorp Saud Al Tassan to head investment banking in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Swicorp is a Saudi capital market firm focused on the Middle East and Africa.
Previously, Al Tassan worked at NCB Capital and Banque Saudi Fransi, Bloomberg reported.
Bank of America is among the many financial institutions working on Saudi Aramco’s IPO, which is expected to be the biggest ever. Saudi Aramco’s listing deal is a huge opportunity for foreign institutions to further tap into merger and acquisitions and share sales in the Kingdom. For that reason, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are seeking to open and increase headcount in the Kingdom, several media reports said.
Aramco is planning to sell two percent of its shares which would put the listing at $40 billion. Proceeds from the Aramco IPO will be used to implement plans part of Saudi Vision 2030 to diversify the economy on a large scale.
“This IPO is likely to be by far the biggest single infusion of capital into the fossil fuel industry since at least the Paris Agreement (on climate change) in late 2015,” the Sierra Club and the Rainforest Action Network among environmental groups, said in the letter to the CEOs of Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Goldman Sachs hired a former banker at HSBC’s Saudi Arabian unit Eyas Al Dossari as head of investment banking and Mohammed Al Awad to head its equities business in the Kingdom.