PIF to invest $45B more in SoftBank fund

riyadh— Saudi Arabia is preparing to double-down on its bet that Masayoshi Son can pick the technology giants of the future. The country’s sovereign fund will make another $45 billion investment in Son’s second massive Vision Fund.

The Public Investment Fund, or PIF, is set to make the investment as it looks for ways to deploy a $170 billion windfall it’s expecting over the next threeto-four years. That money would come from the sale of a stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp and the initial public offering of state oil company Saudi Aramco, according to PIF Chairman Mohammed bin Salman — who is also Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince.

The PIF wants to be a key investor in the second $100 billion investment fund that SoftBank Group Corp chief executive officer Son plans to raise, Prince Mohammed said in an interview with Bloomberg. That would bring the PIF’s contribution to the two funds to $90 billion, he said.

“We have a huge benefit from the first one,” he said.

“We would not put, as PIF, another $45 billion if we didn’t see huge income in the first year with the first $45 billion.”

Calls to SoftBank by Bloomberg News outside business hours went unanswered.

In addition to its commitment to the first Vision Fund, the PIF made a $3.5 billion investment in Uber Technologies, built up an almost five per cent stake in Tesla and then put $1 billion into its rival, Lucid Inc. The PIF also agreed to put $20 billion into a US infrastructure fund run by Blackstone Group LP. —