Saudi prince strikes again by buying a bigger stake in Nintendo
He continues his streak
According to a new report from Reuters , Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman is continuing to invest in gaming, this time increasing his stake in Nintendo .
Going into details, he now owns 6% of its shares, according to a filing made public on Thursday. In fact, through Savvy Gaming, the subsidiary of the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Saudi owns 6.07% of the Japanese giant.
The first time we learned about Nintendo’s acquisition of a stake by the Public Investment Fund was last year in May, when the Saudis became the company’s 5 largest investors, with a 5.01% stake. It has even been revealed in the past that the ultimate goal is to make Saudi Arabia a global gaming hub, with ambitious plans to establish at least 250 gaming companies and create 39,000 related jobs.
In this context, many more relevant investments are to be made, while the Saudis want to acquire a publishing company.
For the record, the prince’s huge streak had taken impressive proportions the previous year, since always through his Public Investment Fund, he acquired about 8% of Embracer Group , as well as 5% of Capcom and Nexon, spending a total of more than $1 billion, according to another Bloomberg report .
At the same time, at the beginning of April it had acquired 96% of the historic gaming company SNK , while in December 2020 the fund also acquired shares of Activision Blizzard , Electronic Arts and Take – Two for over $3 billion. Thus, it is expected to benefit quite a lot if the acquisition of the former by Microsoft is completed successfully. Finally, already in the middle of May, the Saudi was a large shareholder of Nintendo , increasing his percentage to 5%.
It is worth noting that the Public Investment Fund is said to be crucial to Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal of making the Saudi economy less dependent on revenues derived from oil exports.
