As per Saudi Arabia’s government financial regulatory body Capital Market Authority’s (CMA) new data, the total amount of assets held by investment funds in the Kingdom surged by 26 percent year-on-year to $117.87 billion in 2020.
During the period, the total number of investment funds in Saudi Arabia jumped to 691 from 607 in 2019, with 254 public funds and 437 private funds. The value of private investment funds, which make up 53 percent of the funds in the country, increased by 23 percent to reach $61.9 billion in 2020. The remaining 47 percent which is the public investment funds, grew by 31 percent to a total value of $55.9 billion.
Generally, the investment fund profits consist of capital gains that are earnings emerging from an improvement or change in the prices of the invested securities in addition to the dividend profits awarded.
In private funds, equities and real estate made up 90 percent of total assets. There were a total of 5,301 subscribers for 437 private funds in the Kingdom. Money markets, REITs, and equity accounted for 85 percent of the total assets of public funds. As per the data, the 254 public funds had a total of 358,894 subscribers.
One of the most high-profile investment funds in the Kingdom is the sovereign wealth fund of the country, the Public Investment Fund (PIF). Last week, the PIF announced that it had arranged a $15 billion credit facility with a group of international banks.
In line with the Saudi government’s recent Vision Realization Programs, the PIF has pledged to invest about $40 billion a year until 2025 into the Kingdom’s economy to generate jobs and stimulate private-sector activity.
One of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, PIF currently holds $400 billion of assets under management and it plans to increase its value to more than $1 trillion by 2025.
