#Saudi Wealth Fund Put 2008 Crisis Lesson to Use This Time Around - Bloomberg

Saudi Wealth Fund Put 2008 Crisis Lesson to Use This Time Around - Bloomberg

Having lost out on buying stocks on the cheap during the global financial crisis, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. So, when the coronavirus pandemic sent markets into a tailspin, it was all geared up.

“The crown prince always talked about how we missed an opportunity in 2008 to invest in international markets, so we were ready,” Yasir Al Rumayyan, governor of the nation’s Public Investment Fund, said in a televised interview. The two had “talked about the things that we should do if we face something like this.”

The fund received a $40 billion transfer from the nation’s reserves in March so it could take advantage of the crash in markets, buying stakes in companies including Citigroup Inc., Facebook Inc. and cruise-ship operator Carnival Corp. By the end of June it had sold most of those stakes and switched to holding about $7 billion in exchange traded funds.

“When the coronavirus emerged, we didn’t only look at the U.S. markets, we looked at all international markets,” Al Rumayyan said. “We entered some U.S., European and Asian markets. We stayed in some, and we left some.”