Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who chairs the state investment fund PIF (Public Investment Fund), is trying to diversify the country’s business focus and reduce its dependence on the oil industry. For this purpose, it often invests in major game companies, and for now the last choice fell on Electronic Arts.
Investment portal Seeking Alpha reports that the Saudi fund owned 24.81 million EA shares at the end of the fourth quarter of the past fiscal year 2023, compared to only 16.01 million in the third quarter. This means there was a 55% increase between January and March. The publishing company issued a total of 274 million shares, so the Saudi share is currently 9%.
The news comes three months after bin Salman, through a series of successive purchases through his Savvy Games Group division, increased the Saudi investment stake in Nintendo to a total of 8.26%, making it the largest shareholder in the Japanese gaming giant outside of Japan.
This is a continuation of a long-standing trend – less than three years ago, PIF acquired shares in Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Take-Two for more than three billion dollars. Last spring, he again spent another billion dollars for an 8% stake in Embracer Group (parent company of THQ Nordic, Crystal Dynamics, Nordic Games and others). In addition, he also owns shares in Capcom and the South Korean publishing company Nexon.
Not everyone is happy to see the Saudi investment efforts, especially because of the lukewarm approach to human rights in the country and the person of Prince bin Salman himself. This is connected to the brutal torture and murder of opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which, according to the conclusions of the CIA (thanks, Washington Post), the prince ordered.
