YURI KADOBNOV / Getty
- Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is one of the largest in the world, released investments it bought and sold in the second quarter in an SEC filing.
- The state-sponsored Public Investment Fund is abandoning its investments in major U.S. companies such as Boeing, Facebook, Marriott, and Disney, according to the submission.
- The wealth fund focused on exchange-traded funds instead of individual investments and invested nearly $ 4.7 billion in the real estate and utilities sectors.
- PIF also sold 50% of its shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
- Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is closing its shares in some of the world’s largest companies to focus more on barter-denominated funds in the second quarter of the year, according to a statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The composition of the wealth fund had changed significantly from the first four years, seeing a higher concentration in ETFs, which are a low rate of equities and other securities that increase diversification. It bought ETFs on real estate and utilities, a 13F filing revealed.
The Kingdom’s public investment fund, which has a total assets of about $ 300 billion, invested $ 4.65 billion in ETFs with US domicile, it submitted.
The fund invested $ 1.86 billion in The Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund, and $ 2.79 billion in The Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund, it submitted.
PIF holdings in U.S. ETFs and equities totaled just over $ 10 billion, up from about $ 8.76 billion at the end of the first quarter this year.
The wealth fund dumped its individual interests worth more than half a billion dollars in large multinational companies such as Boeing, Facebook, Marriott International, and Walt Disney.
It also sold some 50%, or 210,222 shares, of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
The stake in Facebook was worth more than $ 520 million, while its Disney stake was worth about $ 495 million, according to the SEC filing.
Read more: Joe Biden officially accepts the Democratic nomination this week. RBC says it buys these 47 stocks that speak to each sector that is ready to crush the market if it wins in a wave election.
PIF had pledged billions of dollars into these large U.S. companies in the first quarter with the goal of spreading its economy away from oil, a move intended to capitalize on the sell-off of coronavirus to buy the shares at bargain prices.
The SEC filing revealed that PIF had also fired its positions in the US banks Citigroup and Bank of America, and European energy companies Shell, BP, and Total.
The fund voted its shares in cruise operator Carnival and event promoter Live Nation Entertainment.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, has called on gunmen over the economy’s plan to hide his image of the kingdom’s “addiction” to oil. Previously, PIF bought stakes in Uber, Tesla, and Softbank from Vision’s Softbank to expand its global portfolio.
Oil revenues accounted for 77% of the country’s total turnover, but the kingdom’s crude exports fell in one month this year by $ 12 billion, as record low prices hurt revenue.
Read more: ‘We will pay the price’: Well-known investor Jim Rogers sounds the alarm on central bank printing of money and excess debt – and warns that the next meltdown ‘will be the worst in my life’
.
