Reported deal seen helping Saudi Arabia ‘invest in key evolving technologies’
LONDON: SoftBank’s reported plan to invest $25 billion in Saudi Arabia would be a “unique” move, a Riyadh-based economist has said.
The Japanese group, which is headed by Masayoshi Son, plans to invest the funds in Saudi Arabia over the next three to four years, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
SoftBank plans to deploy up to $15 billion in the new high-tech city of Neom, with its $100 billion Vision Fund planning an investment of as much as $10 billion in Saudi Electricity, Bloomberg reported.
John Sfakianakis, director of economic research at the Gulf Research Center in Riyadh, said the reported investment would be “unique” as KSA is a co-investor in the Vision Fund.
“Here we have some of the money that Saudi Arabia invested in Vision finding its way back to the donor country, helping the Kingdom to invest in key evolving technologies, and boosting the economy overall,” said Sfakianakis.
The move would be part and parcel of what SoftBank indicated at last month’s Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, added Sfakianakis.
SoftBank representatives made it clear then that they wanted to reinvest money from the Vision Fund into KSA, as the country looks to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil, he said.
At the same time, the Vision Fund’s investment philosophy underlines Son’s belief in a future that he believes will be dominated by robotics and artificial intelligence.
Its investments so far have spanned robotics software startups like Brain Corp. and business software maker Slack. SoftBank has also been involved in a plan to buy a fifth of the existing stock of Uber — the company that has disrupted the transportation industry. With plans for Neom to be at the forefront of robotics and AI, the planned $500 billion megacity is an an obvious target for Son and SoftBank, said Sfakianakis.
Besides SoftBank and the Saudi wealth fund, investors in the Vision Fund include the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, Apple and Foxconn. The Vision Fund announced in May it had raised over $93 billion from investors to fund ventures in areas such as AI and robotics.
Saudi Arabia previously announced plans to sell a large minority stake in Saudi Electricity to the Vision Fund but the figures have not been made public.
SoftBank did not respond to a request for comment on the Bloomberg report. Representatives of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the investor in the Vision Fund, did not provide a comment.