Saudi investment fund assets rise 26% to $117bn in 2020

Published 13 Mar,2021 via Arab News - Economy JEDDAH - The total amount of assets held by investment funds in Saudi Arabia increased by 26 percent year-on-year to SR442 billion ($117.87 billion) in 2020, according to data released by the Capital Market Authority (CMA).

During the period, the number of investment funds in the Kingdom increased to 691 from 607 in 2019, with 254 public funds and 437 private funds.

Investment fund profits usually consist of capital gains — that is, profits resulting from an improvement or change in the prices of the invested securities in addition to the dividend profits awarded.

The value of private investment funds, which make up 53 percent of the funds in the Kingdom, increased by 23 percent to SR232.3 billion last year. The remaining 47 percent — public investment funds — grew by 31 percent to a total value of SR209.7 billion.

In private funds, equities and real estate made up 90 percent of total assets. Of the 437 private funds in the Kingdom, there were 5,301 subscribers in total.

Money markets, REITs, and equity accounted for 85 percent of the total assets of public funds. According to the data, the 254 public funds had a total of 358,894 subscribers.

One of the most high-profile investment funds in the Kingdom is the sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

On Wednesday last week, it announced it had arranged a $15 billion credit facility with a group of international banks.

Under the government’s recent Vision Realization Programs, the PIF has pledged to inject $40 billion a year until 2025 into the Saudi economy to generate jobs and stimulate private-sector activity in the Kingdom.

PIF, currently with $400 billion of assets under management, plans to increase its value to more than $1 trillion by 2025.

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