London Stock Exchange CEO accompanying British PM May in Saudi Arabia

LONDON/DUBAI: London Stock Exchange's CEO Xavier Rolet will meet Saudi officials in Riyadh as part of a visit by British Prime Minister Theresa May, a spokeswoman for the exchange said on Tuesday.

The LSE and other top stock exchanges are pitching to win a slice of state oil company Saudi Aramco's initial public offering, expected to be the world's largest.

Winning a share of the Aramco listing would be a boost for the LSE, which has seen few listings since Britain's vote to leave the European Union and needs to convince investors it has a solid growth strategy following the collapse of its proposed merger with Deutsche Boerse.

Aramco is expected to list a small portion of its shares on the Saudi stock market, with the rest likely to go to one, two or possibly three of the world's biggest exchanges.

The IPO, expected in 2018, could be worth around $100 billion, Saudi officials have said.

Rolet will attend a roundtable discussion which Prime Minister May will host at the Saudi stock exchange on Tuesday, a spokesman for the prime minister's office confirmed.

He met earlier on Tuesday with Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih, people familiar with the matter said.

May arrived in the Saudi capital on Tuesday, official Saudi state news agency, SPA reported.

New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Toronto are also seeking to win a slice of the Aramco IPO and Saudi officials have been meeting with exchanges to decide where the shares should be traded.