Saudi PIF Nets $17B in Gains in 2023, Reversing Prior Year Slump

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund rebounded in 2023, netting a profit of 64.4 trillion riyals ($17.176 billion), according to an audit report from KPMG. The sovereign wealth fund has yet to release its comprehensive annual report for 2023.

Assets of the fund grew to nearly $990 billion at the end of 2023, up from $925 billion in 2022. Revenues doubled to $88.3 billion year-end 2023 from $44 billion in 2022. 

The Saudi fund had reported a loss of $16.5 billion in 2022, mainly attributed to unrealized losses from investments in Softbank’s Vision Fund, the multinational’s venture capital unit, as well as losses in the technology sector that resulted from that year’s market downturn.

The PIF is investing in a number of ambitious projects, including tens of billions of dollars to turn the country into an artificial intelligence and semiconductor hub, as well as multiple planned cities as part of Neom, an urban area under development that is part of the country’s Saudi Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to diversify the country’s oil-rich economy.  

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The fund saw its biggest increase in revenue in 2023 from gaming and media, a sector in which it has invested more than $40 billion, with revenues to the fund increasing nearly tenfold year over year to 7.898 billion riyals in 2023 from 806 million riyals in 2022. 

The fund also benefited from dividend payments by Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s oil company. Earlier this year, the Saudi government transferred an 8% stake in Aramco to the PIF, doubling its stake to 16% in a bid to increase the assets of the fund. The PIF has a goal of becoming a $2 trillion fund by 2030.

According to Global SWF, the PIF was the biggest spender amongst its peers in 2023, deploying $31.6 billion of capital into investments, the highest of any sovereign wealth fund that year. 