Saudi Arabia opens wealth fund’s books ahead of debut bond

Saudi Arabia opens wealth fund’s books ahead of debut bond

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has revealed that it delivered a shareholder return of 25 per cent last year as the Public Investment Fund opened its books for the first time in preparation for issuing a debut bond. 

Details of the $608bn PIF’s financial performance were provided in a prospectus after the fund hired banks to act as bookrunners and co-ordinators as it considered raising several billion dollars in green bonds, including five and 10-year tranches, and possibly a longer duration bond.

The fund has been transformed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, its chair, over the past seven years from a sleepy SWF into one of the Gulf’s most active investors. 

Prince Mohammed has charged the PIF with driving his ambitious plans to modernise the conservative kingdom and more actively invest in foreign assets. It was an anchor investor in SoftBank’s Vision Fund, investing $45bn, has committed $20bn to an infrastructure fund managed by Blackstone, owns a majority stake in Lucid, the electric vehicle maker, and has $2bn invested in Russia. 

The PIF hopes the issuance of green bonds will help it establish a track record in debt capital markets enabling it to raise funding in the future as it pushes ahead with the development of megaprojects. 

Given the scale