Someone didn’t always have PIF
If you have recently heard of PIF, it is for its role in the acquisition of Electronic Arts from two American funds. The country led by Prince Mohammed bin Salman has invested considerably in the video game industry by buying shares in Capcom, Take-Two, SNK and even Nintendo for a time, while trying to make a big place for itself in the world of esports and on the mobile market, by paying itself Pokémon Go via the company Scopely. All of this obviously took a lot of money. And money is now starting to run out.
This is what the New York Times indicates, which reveals that the capital of the fund is now much smaller than in the past, no longer allowing the group to invest as much as in recent months. However, this is not not directly linked to its investments in the world of video gameseven though a significant amount of money was at stake here. The newspaper specifies that the fund owes this situation to projects which have been in “financial distress”, such as the construction of the city of Neom, which concentrates many financial problems.
But if we are interested, this is above all because the fund would a priori be more limited in its future acquisitions. We could also bet on the fact that he could resell some of his shares in video game companies, unless he strengthens his activity in this sector, which is more buoyant than others. A spokesperson for the group indicates that the PIF would still have $60 billion in cash. A sum that remains gigantic, to the extent that the PIF could have afforded to buy EA on its own (the publisher was bought for $55 billion).