Published on
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is gearing up for what could be the most consequential stock market debut in history. The rocket and satellite company is eyeing a Wall Street listing as early as next month, with reports suggesting it could raise as much as $75 billion (€68bn) — a figure that would eclipse every IPO ever recorded.
To put that in perspective, here is every record-holder it would be leapfrogging.
The current champion: Saudi Aramco
The world’s most profitable oil company holds the crown with a $25.6bn (€23.2bn) listing on the Riyadh Stock Exchange in December 2019.
It was a landmark moment for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 push to wean the kingdom off oil revenues and open its economy to outside investors — a plan launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016 with Aramco, the crown jewel of the Saudi economy, at its centre.
And yet it would still be less than a third of what SpaceX is reportedly targeting.
The tech giants
Alibaba comes in second. Jack Ma’s e-commerce empire raised $21.8bn (€19.8bn) on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014 in what was, at the time, the most hyped tech debut ever, and it held the record for years.
Another major listing on the tech front was Facebook, now Meta, which raised $16bn (€14.5bn).
Its May 2012 Nasdaq debut was notoriously plagued by technical glitches that sent the stock into chaos and marked the start of a painful few weeks for early investors. Zuckerberg’s company has since become one of the most valuable companies in the world.
The Japanese contingent
SoftBank Corp raised $21.3bn (€19.3bn) in Tokyo in December 2018. Its founder, Masayoshi Son, is one of tech’s most celebrated gamblers — the man whose early bet on Alibaba eventually became worth tens of billions.
Also on the list is NTT DoCoMo, the mobile arm of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Japan’s state-backed telecoms giant. Its $18.1bn (€16.4bn) Tokyo listing in October 1998 came at the height of the global mobile boom, when investors were clamouring for exposure to the sector.
China’s banking behemoths
Two state-owned Chinese lenders make the list, a reminder of just how dominant Beijing’s financial institutions became in the years following the 2008 crisis.
Agricultural Bank of China raised $19.2bn (€17.4bn) across Shanghai and Hong Kong in July 2010 — one of the biggest listings to emerge from China’s state-driven economic expansion.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank by assets with a balance sheet bigger than the GDP of most countries, pulled in $19.1bn (€17.3bn) across the same two exchanges in 2006.
The rest of the field
Visa raised $17.9bn (€16.2bn) on its NYSE debut in March 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis — a remarkable show of investor confidence at a moment when Wall Street was unravelling.
AIA Group, the Asian insurance giant carved out of the wreckage of AIG following its near-collapse in the same crisis, raised $17.8bn (€16.1bn) in Hong Kong in October 2010.
And Italy’s Enel, now one of Europe’s largest energy companies and a major player in the global renewable push, made its Milan and New York debut in November 1999 with a $16.5bn (€15bn) raise.
SpaceX, if it meets its reported target, would not just top the list — it would be almost three times larger than the current record.