Saudi wealth fund PIF plans to borrow via debt twice this year, says MD

The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will raise money through debt twice this year including foreign currency borrowings, its managing director told CNBC.

“I think it’s going to be in the neighbourhood of SAR14bn ($3.73bn) and for the US dollar I think it’s going to be north of $8 or $10bn,” Yasir al-Rumayyan said in an interview at a conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Last year the fund raised an $11bn international syndicated loan, its first commercial borrowing, and sources told Reuters this month it has been in talks with banks to raise a short-term bridge loan for as much as $8bn to use for new investments. Recently a fund executive said he the PIF is no hurry to issue a bond.

He said PIF has $300bn in assets, which has doubled from 2015. The fund employs 500 people.

Rumayyan said it had allocated $45bn into the $100bn Softbank Vision Fund, which focuses on technology companies. The Softbank Vision Fund has already deployed 80 to 85 per cent of the amount, he said.

PIF has made substantial commitments to renewables and recycling, and to technology companies, such as the money invested in a technology fund led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp . It also owns stakes in electric car makers Tesla and Lucid Motors.

“If you look at our international investment, it’s like a bridge to Saudi Arabia,” Rumayyan said.

“The companies that we have in Softbank Vision Fund, like 80 of them, we started signing MOUs and JVs with some of these companies.”