Arab News

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund bought shares in Alphabet, Zoom Video and Microsoft as part of a wider pick of US stocks, bringing the sovereign wealth fund’s second-quarter investments to about $40.8 billion.

The PIF acquired 213,000 class A shares in Alphabet, 4.7 million class A shares in Zoom and 1.8 million shares in Microsoft, a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed.

It also acquired shares in JPMorgan and BlackRock, buying 3.9 million shares and 741,693 shares respectively.

The fund bought 6.3 million shares in Starbucks, and added other stocks including Adobe Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, Salesforce, Home Depot, Costco, Freeport-McMoRan, Datadog and NextEra Energy.

The PIF, which manages $620 billion in assets, is at the center of Saudi Arabia’s plans to transform the economy by creating new sectors and diversifying revenues away from oil.

The PIF is pursuing a two-pronged strategy, building an international portfolio of investments while also investing locally in projects that will help to reduce Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil.

Apart from these firms, Saudi Arabia’s PIF is also the majority stakeholder in Lucid Motors, headquartered in California. Currently, PIF owns more than 60 percent share in the electric vehicle manufacturer.

In the first quarter of this year, PIF reduced its ownership of US equities by 22 percent to $43.6 billion, against the $55.9 billion it held a quarter earlier.

A filing by the US Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of the first quarter suggested that PIF cut its stake in three companies which includes Visa Inc., Plug Power, and Walmart.

PIF, however, increased its holdings in Take-Two Interactive, PayPal, Alibaba, and Farfetch Ltd.

Data released by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, in April, had revealed that PIF is currently in the fifth spot among the largest sovereign funds in the world with assets valued at $620 billion. 

(With inputs from Reuters)