*LONDON – The king spoke, and a $2 trillion (£1.55 trillion) dream went upin smoke.*

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia has prepared to place up to 5 percentof its national oil company on the stock market. Officials talked up theSaudi Aramco initial public offering (IPO) with international exchanges,global banks and U.S. President Donald Trump.

The planned listing was to be the cornerstone of the kingdom’s promisedeconomic overhaul and, at a targeted $100 billion, the biggest IPO ever. Itwas the brainchild of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heirapparent of the world’s largest oil exporter.

But after months of setbacks, the international and domestic legs of theIPO were pulled.

The reason: the prince’s father King Salman stepped in to shelve it, threesources with ties to government insiders told Reuters.

The decision came after the king met with family members, bankers, andsenior oil executives, including a former Aramco CEO, said one of thesources, who requested anonymity. Those consultations took place duringRamadan, which ended in the middle of June.

The king’s interlocutors told him that the IPO, far from helping thekingdom, would undermine it. Their main concern was that an IPO would bringfull public disclosure of Aramco’s financial details, the sources said.

In late June, the king sent a message to his diwan, or administrativeoffice, demanding that the IPO be called off, the three sources said. Theking’s decision is final, a second source said.

“Whenever he says ‘no’, there is no budging,” the source said.