DUBAI - Saudi Arabia has invited the market to join a public consultation on a planned framework to enable large shareholders to float additional shares, said Abdullah Binghannam, Deputy of Financing and Investment, Capital Market Authority.

The 'FMO' framework would be a process that is governed and regulated and a catalyst for increasing the free float of listed companies, Binghannam told an audience at the Saudi Capital Markets Forum in Riyadh.

"We had STC [Saudi Telecom Co] (STC) a few years ago and since we had this practice in the market we should regulate, because we are following a concept of trying to enable by regulations."

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, raised $3.2 billion from the sale of some of its shares in STC in 2021.

Saudi Arabia is also poised to sell more Aramco shares, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month, which could boost the country's funding and its aim of shifting the economy away from oil.

The share sale could raise about $20 billion, according to Bloomberg. Saudi Aramco has not confirmed the figure.

(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)