Daily Times

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought shares in Alphabet, Zoom Video and Microsoft as part of a wider pick of US stocks, bringing the market value of the sovereign wealth fund’s investment portfolio to about $40.8b at the end of the second quarter. The PIF acquired 213,000 class A shares in Alphabet, 4.7m class A shares in Zoom and 1.8m shares in Microsoft, a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed. It also acquired shares in JPMorgan and BlackRock, buying 3.9m shares and 741,693 shares respectively. The fund bought 6.3m 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 $620b in assets, is at the centre 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.