The Gulf’s seven largest sovereign wealth funds had a blockbuster year in 2025, accounting for nearly half of all capital spent by sovereign funds globally.

What happened: In its sixth annual report released Thursday, Global SWF, which tracks sovereign wealth and pension fund activity, found that global dealmaking reached a record high, with $276 billion deployed across 559 investments.

The Gulf 7 SWFs — the region’s largest and most active funds, including ADIA, ADQ, Mubadala, ICD, the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Qatar Investment Authority and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — accounted for 43% of total capital deployed, or $126 billion, up 46% from 2024. Overall, SWF investments in 2025 reached $179.3 billion across 323 deals, a 35% increase year on year.

Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion SWF, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), was the world’s top spending SWF in 2025 with $36.2 billion in investments. Nearly 80% of that total came from a single transaction: the $28.8 billion commitment to acquire US gaming company Electronic Arts (EA) in September, the largest SWF deal of the year, which saw a PIF-led consortium take the company private.