Saudi sovereign fund aims for $2tn portfolio

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, wants to increase its portfolio of assets to $2 trillion (Dh7.3tn) by 2030 as it aggressively invests in domestic and international markets.

“Today we are short of $300bn in assets under management. The number would be $400bn by 2020 and we are targeting for the fund to be the size of $2tn in 2030,” Yasir Al Rumayyan, the managing director of PIF told delegates at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh yesterday.

The fund, which has historically invested in the domestic market on behalf of the Saudi government, has expanded its international investments to 10 per cent of its total asset base in four years.

PIF, which holds stakes in the US ride-hailing company Uber and electric car makers Tesla and Lucid, in the medium-term would like to achieve a 25 and 75 per cent balance between international and domestic assets, respectively. By 2030 the aim is to have a 50-50 split between the two, he said.

“That doesn’t mean that we are scaling down our domestic investments ... we are growing,” Mr Al Rumayyan said.

“We will have a lot of new investments domestically and a lot internationally.”

PIF, which is at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation agenda, is mandated to invest and grow local industries while at the same time invest abroad in assets to provide returns for Riyadh, which seeks to generate alternative revenue sources in the wake of the three-year oil price slump.

In the domestic market, PIF holds stakes in some of the region’s biggest companies and financial institutions such as: Sabic, the top petrochemicals producer in the Middle East; mining giant Ma’aden; and the kingdom’s largest telecommunications operator STC.

The fund also owns stakes in National Commercial Bank and Samba Financial Group, two of the biggest lenders in the country.

PIF is a cornerstone investor in SoftBank’s $93bn Vision Fund with a $45 billion contribution, and Mr Al Rumayyan said it has invested in about 50 to 60 companies through Softbank’s vehicle so far.

Most of these companies would come to the kingdom to help diversify the economy and generate employment, he said.

PIF will continue to invest in the technology sector, which can offer investment returns that are “very difficult to achieve in some of the conventional investments,” Mr Al Rumayyan said.