Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, known as the Public Investment Fund, is an active player in U.S. public and private markets.
Unlike most U.S. funds, it isn’t required to break down its holdings in either of those markets. But among the documents disclosed in the recent PGA-LIV merger hearings was a previously unreported list of the sovereign wealth fund’s top public equity holdings, valued at about $35.5 billion. From that report, it appears PIF has made a clear series of bets on experiential offerings, ranging from gaming to in-person entertainment.
The list, which was updated as of March 31, shows a $8.9 billion stake in electric automaker Lucidcontrols about 60% of Lucid’s outstanding shares at the time of publication.
PIF’s second-largest stake, in Activision Blizzard
In descending order of size, PIF’s next-largest corporate holdings were in Electronic ArtsUberTake-Two Interactive SoftwareLive Nation
The PIF was variously under- and overweight in its tech exposure, relative to the Nasdaq. Its $691 million stake in Meta was about 1.9% of the fund’s total public market allocation, compared with the stock’s 2.87% weighting in the S&P.
Google accounts for 2.87% of the Nasdaq by weight but made up a mere 1.2% of the PIF’s $35.51 billion public portfolio. The company was also notably overweight on other tech names, including bets on Booking HoldingsUberZoom
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed privileged access and outsize attention from venture capital and private equity firms, which are keen to activate the kingdom’s deep pockets as it diversifies away from oil and gas investments under the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Here’s the full list:
— CNBC’s John Rosevear contributed to this report.
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