PetroChina: First Firm Worth $1 Trillion
November 5th, 2007Via: AP:
PetroChina became the world’s first company worth more than $1 trillion on Monday, surging past Exxon Mobil as the Chinese oil producer’s shares nearly tripled in their first day of trading in China.
State-owned PetroChina Co., a unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., is the country’s biggest oil and gas producer. Its Shanghai initial public offering of 4 billion shares raised $8.94 billion — a record for a mainland bourse.
Adding the value of PetroChina shares traded in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York — and those still owned by the government — the company’s total market capitalization ballooned to just over $1 trillion, compared to Exxon Mobil Corp.’s $488 billion.
However, more than 85 percent the shares outstanding — 157.9 billion shares — are held by PetroChina’s parent company CNPC and are unlikely to trade in the market any time soon.
