Saudi Arabia invests over $7.7 billion in some of the world's most well-known companies
The Saudi Arabian sovereign fund, Public Investment Fund (PIF), has invested more than $7.7 billion in some of the world's best-known companies, while the rest of the world is facing an unprecedented health crisis caused by the coronavirus. The huge Saudi Arabian sovereign fund has bought stakes in companies such as Boeing, Facebook, Disney, Marriott and Starbucks.
Saudi Arabia's international investment strategy has also included two US banks, Citigroup and Bank of America. Also, among the companies selected by the PIF are three large oil giants such as BP, Total S.A. and Royal Dutch Shell. This wave of investment reflects the confidence on the part of the PIF in the rapid recovery of these companies after the COVID-19 pandemic. "The PIF is acting from a long-term perspective. Saudi Arabia has bought these shares when they were cheap with the intention that they will go back up when all these passes," Tarek Fadlallah, Managing Director of Nomura Asset Management in the Middle East, told the Arab News newspaper.
The objective of this fund is to make Saudi Arabia "a global investment power and a high impact investor, enabling the creation of new sectors and opportunities that will shape the future world economy, while driving Saudi Arabia's economic transformation". This institution has repeatedly indicated that its intention is to "actively invest for the long term to maximize sustainable returns, to be the preferred investment partner for global opportunities and to enable the economic development and diversification of the Saudi economy". This new wave of investment comes just one month after the same fund invested $1 billion in the purchase of shares of different European companies in the oil sector.
The global cases of COVID-19 confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) surpassed the 4.5 million mark on Sunday. The focus has shifted to the Americas, where there are currently 1.96 million cases. In this scenario and with the arrival of this virus, the actions of the United States lost about 30% of their value. The Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has holdings of about $10 billion in 24 companies. Of this amount, at least two billion dollars have been invested in the American company Uber. In second place is the investment in BP, almost 34 million shares valued at $827 million, followed by Boeing's stake of $713 million. Facebook and Citigroup holdings were valued at about $521 million each, Arab News reported.
Entertainment, technology and tourism have become the new focus of the Kingdom's sovereign fund, which has also invested in the Marriott hotel group, the online travel company Booking.com and the event promoter Live Nation. In the technology sector, the investments in Cisco, Qualcomm and Broadcom or the pharmaceutical company Pfizer are notable. The sovereign wealth fund, which is directly managed by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, manages assets of up to $300 billion.
