PIF to invest additional $45 bln with SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, says Crown Prince

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is set to invest an additional $45 billion in Masayoshi Son’s second massive Vision Fund, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told Bloomberg in an interview.

That money would come from the sale of a stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) and the initial public offering (IPO) of state oil company Saudi Aramco, according to Prince Mohammed, who is also chairman of PIF.

The Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund wants to be a key investor in the second $100 billion investment fund that SoftBank Group Corp. CEO Son plans to raise, Prince Mohammed said.

“That would bring the PIF’s contribution to the two funds to $90 billion.”

He added: “We have a huge benefit from the first one. We would not put, as PIF, another $45 billion if we didn’t see huge income in the first year with the first $45 billion.”

Since unveiling a strategy in 2016 to transform the PIF from a domestic holding company into the world’s largest sovereign fund, it has made a series of bold investments— many of which have focused on technology companies yet to make a profit.

In addition to its commitment to the first Vision Fund, the PIF made a $3.5 billion investment in Uber Technologies Inc., built up an almost 5 percent stake in Tesla Inc., and then put $1 billion into its rival, Lucid Inc. The PIF also agreed to put $20 billion into a U.S. infrastructure fund run by Blackstone Group LP.