Days after its last increase, Saudi Arabia yet again ups its Nintendo stake
The Saudi wealth fund also recently raised its stakes in EA and Take-Two
Saudi Arabia has become Nintendo’s biggest outside investor after increasing its stake in the company for the third time this year.
The kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) now holds 8.26% of the stock in the Japanese Super Mario maker, a company filing revealed on Friday (via the Associated Press).
The fund first acquired a 5.01% stake in Nintendo in May 2022 and has been steadily increasing its stake this year. In January, it raised its stake to 6.07% and earlier this week it reportedly upped it to 7.08%.
Nintendo has previously claimed that when the PIF bought its initial stake in the company, it was unaware of the transaction and first learned about the Saudi investment from news reports. It has yet to comment on the latest developments.
The PIF, which has made a series of investments in the video games industry in recent years, is reportedly central to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal of making the Saudi economy less reliant on proceeds from oil.
In December 2020, the fund acquired over $3 billion worth of stock in Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, FIFA publisher Electronic Arts, and Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two.
As noted by Axios, filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in December revealed that the sovereign wealth fund had increased its stake in EA from 5.1% to 5.8%, and upped its stake in Take-Two from 5.3% to 6.8%.
According to Nasdaq Stock Market data, the fund holds stock worth $2.9 billion in Activision Blizzard, $1.7 billion in EA, and $1.2 billion in Take-Two.
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PIF’s continued investments in video game companies may raise concerns for some, given Saudi Arabia’s longstanding history of human rights abuses.
American Intelligence agencies have also accused the crown prince of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
