Saudi Arabia’s PIF poised for more bold investments as Vision 2030 squeezes war chest

Al-Monitor Readers

Samuel Wendel

Senior Market Research Analyst, Al-Monitor

March 8, 2024

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund just got a big balance sheet boost: on March 7, the kingdom transferred an 8% stake in Aramco to the Public Investment Fund, or PIF. That stake, worth about $160 billion, doubles the PIF’s holding in the oil giant and likely pushes the fund’s assets under management (AUM) close to $900 billion. The move only underscores the PIF’s centrality to Saudi Arabia’s sprawling (and increasingly expensive) economic diversification agenda, dubbed Vision 2030, and comes after it unleashed a slew of disruptive investments in 2023, when it ranked as the world’s most active sovereign wealth fund. That said, this prolific spending is adding up and state coffers are feeling the impacts of weak global oil demand. That’s pushing Saudi Arabia to borrow more alongside exploring another Aramco share sale as it looks to keep feeding fresh funding into the PIF.