Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund buys 5% stake in Nintendo for around $3 billion
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has made a big investment in Nintendo. It acquired a 5% stake in the Japanese company, which makes it the fifth-largest shareholder.
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The purchase of a 5.01% stake was made for investment purposes, Bloomberg reported, citing a filing to Japan’s Finance Ministry.
There are not many details about the deal, but Gearoid Reidy from Bloomberg News in Tokyo noted that it is worth around $3 billion. A Nintendo spokesperson said that the company learned about the investment from news reports, refusing to comment on its stakeholders.
Big Nintendo news as Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund reports a 5% stake in the Kyoto-based videogame maker, worth around $3 billion.
The Public Investment Fund continues its love of Japanese videogames, having recently reported similar-sized stakes in the likes of Capcom pic.twitter.com/qZ464fAgUR
— Gearoid Reidy リーディー・ガロウド (@GearoidReidy) May 18, 2022
“Saudi Arabia has been beefing up efforts to create its own content industry, and this series of investments in Japanese game companies is likely a way for them to learn from Japan,” Toyo Securities senior analyst Hideki Yasuda said.
The Public Investment Fund, chaired by prince Mohamed bin Salman Al-Saud, has already invested in several Asian companies. Earlier this year, it bought 5% stakes in Capcom and Nexon for a total of $1.2 billion and acquired 2.57% shares of NCSOFT for $235 million.
Last year, the PIF spent over $3 billion to buy stakes in Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, and Electronic Arts.
