‘Never waste a crisis’: inside Saudi Arabia’s shopping spree | Financial Times:
“You don’t want to waste a crisis . . . So for us, definitely we are looking into any opportunities.”
That was the message delivered by Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, as more than 2,000 bankers and executives tuned in to a virtual conference in April. And they were not idle words.
The $325bn Public Investment Fund has not been shy about its ambitions since it fell under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s stewardship five years ago — it boasts of becoming the world’s “most impactful investor” and the largest sovereign wealth fund. As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks economic carnage across the globe, PIF has stepped up a gear to become the most publicly active sovereign investment vehicle, unabashedly seeking out bargains amid the panic.
Three days after the conference, US regulatory filings revealed the fund had made one of its biggest bets on a company battered by the global crisis. It has snapped up a 5.7 per cent stake worth around $500m in Live Nation, a US-based entertainment company. Three weeks earlier, it had pounced when the shipping industry was sinking to build what is now a 7.3 per cent holding in Carnival, making it the second-largest shareholder in the world’s biggest cruise line operator.
“You don’t want to waste a crisis . . . So for us, definitely we are looking into any opportunities.”
That was the message delivered by Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, as more than 2,000 bankers and executives tuned in to a virtual conference in April. And they were not idle words.
The $325bn Public Investment Fund has not been shy about its ambitions since it fell under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s stewardship five years ago — it boasts of becoming the world’s “most impactful investor” and the largest sovereign wealth fund. As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks economic carnage across the globe, PIF has stepped up a gear to become the most publicly active sovereign investment vehicle, unabashedly seeking out bargains amid the panic.
Three days after the conference, US regulatory filings revealed the fund had made one of its biggest bets on a company battered by the global crisis. It has snapped up a 5.7 per cent stake worth around $500m in Live Nation, a US-based entertainment company. Three weeks earlier, it had pounced when the shipping industry was sinking to build what is now a 7.3 per cent holding in Carnival, making it the second-largest shareholder in the world’s biggest cruise line operator.
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