Dubai (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund on Sunday released its annual report for 2022, which said its assets under management (AUM) surpassed 2.23 trillion riyals ($594.43 billion).
The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund reported an AUM of 1.98 trillion riyals for 2021.
The PIF said it generated a total shareholders’ return of 8% and established 25 companies in 2022, and locally deployed 120 billion riyals in that year in strategic sectors.
The PIF said 23% of its AUM were international investments, while 68% were local investments and the remainder were treasury.
The fund said 17% of its assets were externally managed, while 83% were internally managed.
PIF is the chosen vehicle of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, to drive an economic agenda aimed at cutting reliance on oil.
PIF said the ongoing expansion of its three subsidiary offices in London, New York and Hong Kong would support the fund’s continued growth and “positioning PIF as the partner of choice for global investors”.
Its sources of funding come from retained earnings from investments, capital injections from the government, government assets transferred to the fund and loans and debt instruments.
The fund raised $5.5 billion in February from a green bond sale, following its inaugural green bond that raised $3 billion in October.
In addition, it obtained a $17 billion loan in November from a group of 25 banks that will partly refinance a loan it took out in 2018.
The crown prince in February last year announced the transfer of 4% of shares in Saudi Aramco, worth $80 billion, to the PIF.
In April, there was a second transfer of 4% in Aramco shares, valued also around $80 billion, to PIF’s subsidiary Sanabil Investments.
