PIF’s Al-Rumayyan tips Saudi sovereign fund’s new strategy

Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund is working on a new game plan aimed at generating greater returns over the next 15 years from the kingdom’s vast sovereign wealth.

In an onstage interview on Monday, PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan said the fund will focus on drawing international investors to Saudi Arabia, while pouring the bulk of its money into the country’s ambitious domestic projects, Bloomberg reports.

“In the coming two months or so, we will set the new strategy for the PIF, which is a continuation from the original one, until 2030 and from 2030 all the way to 2040 and beyond,” Al-Rumayyan told interviewer David Rubenstein, the co-founder of Carlyle Group, at the Economic Club of Washington D.C.

Currently, about 80% of the PIF’s capital is invested locally, with a smaller portion deployed internationally. Among the largest recipients of the fund’s money are the kingdom’s megaprojects such as NEOM on the Red Sea coast, the Diriyah historic district in Riyadh and the Qiddiya sports and entertainment district.

“We need to increase and grow our local content and one of the best ways to do so is to get direct foreign investments to the country,” Al-Rumayyan said.

Asked about the PIF’s upstart LIV Golf league, Al-Rumayyan expressed confidence that cooperation will grow with the PGA Tour even though a planned merger between the two has stalled. “I think hopefully in the future we will be able to bring the game of golf together,” he said.

Saudi Aramco execs go on the road to promote share sale

Saudi Aramco executives are traveling this week to recruit international investors for the oil company’s $12 billion secondary offering, a departure from its IPO held five years ago that was marketed primarily to the home crowd.

Aramco CEO Amin Nasser and CFO Ziad Al Murshed will be attending roadshow events in London while others are planning to join presentations in New York, Bloomberg reports.

Institutional investors can submit orders until June 6 for the $1.8 trillion company’s share sale that began the booking process on Sunday and was oversubscribed within hours.

Before Aramco’s $29.4 billion IPO in 2019, overseas investors showed limited interest, leaving the government reliant on local buyers.

The kingdom scrapped a roadshow event in London and decided against presentations in the U.S. and Japan, choosing instead to focus on its enthusiastic domestic audience, who made the IPO the largest in history.