Alibaba delivers windfall to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund
The kingdom's Public Investment Fund bought 153,000 shares in China's Alibaba during the first quarter of 2024, profiting from the stock’s 24% jump
Alibaba Group’s office building in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo: Getty Images)
A rally this year on the Shanghai Stock Exchange has been a boon to Saudi Arabia.
The Public Investment Fund bought 153,000 shares in Alibaba during the first quarter of 2024, profiting from the stock’s 24% jump during the period, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports, citing disclosures by the PIF to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
By contrast, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund reduced its portfolio of U.S. stocks by about half to $18 billion.
“Investors have relinquished the wait-and-watch approach [for Chinese equities] in favor of building exposure on incremental signs of easing and wiped out the underweight allocation from prior months,” Bank of America strategists said in a note on Thursday, cited by the newspaper.
The MSCI China Index has surged nearly 28% since a January low, restoring over $2 trillion of value to Chinese companies listed on the mainland, in Hong Kong and New York, according to Bloomberg data.