Saudi Arabia’s investment fund has been set an impossible task
It must earn eye-watering returns while speeding the shift to a post-oil economy
![A night view of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240316_FNP004.jpg)
About a decade ago, a flashy, deep-pocketed investor made an appearance. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) had a mandate to go big, and was ready to: it picked up a $3.5bn stake in Uber, placed $45bn in the world’s largest technology-investment fund, SoftBank’s Vision Fund, and provided half the capital for a $40bn infrastructure fund run by Blackstone, a private-equity giant. It has since bought stakes in everything from Heathrow Airport and Nintendo to Hollywood studios and French hotels. Last year it deployed more than $30bn of fresh capital, making it the highest-spending wealth fund in the world (see chart).
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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Princely demands”
Finance & economics March 16th 2024
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