Before Newcastle, Prince of Saudi Arabia Funded Game Company

 


Prince Mohammed bin Salman's company has officially bought Newcastle United. Before the football club, there were also a number of gaming companies that received funding from it.

The company, or rather the consortium, is the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is owned by the Prince of Saudi Arabia. At least USD 3 billion was disbursed by PIF to three US game companies during Q4 2020.


The companies are Activison Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive Software. The gaming industry itself has attracted the interest of Prince Salman, who claims to be the first generation in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to play video games.



He also once admitted that one of his favorite games is the Call of Duty series, the best-selling game series from Activision.



A total of 14.9 million Activision shares were bought by PIF, which was valued at almost USD 1.4 billion in Q4 2020. Then PIF also bought up 7.4 million EA shares and 3.0 million Take-Two shares, which were valued at approximately USD 1.1 billion and USD 826 million at the end of December.




Not only through PIF, Prince Salman's coffers of wealth have also appeared in SNK Corp, the developer of the popular game King of Fighters and Samurai Showdown through the Mohamed bin Salman Foundation - also known as the MiSK Foundation, his charitable organization.


Prince Salman owns a third of SNK's shares through the MiSK Foundation, and plans to increase its ownership to 51%.


PIF itself is a major part of Prince Salman's grand plan to diversify Saudi Arabia's businesses. Namely to reduce their dependence on oil.


Not only games, PIF also has an investment of USD 4.4 billion in Uber and a large commitment in Softbank Group Corp's Vision Fund.


As previously reported, PIF officially took over the ownership of Newcastle from Mike Ashley, which bought 100% of its shares worth 300 million pounds.


The PIF Leaders have been appointed Non-Executive Chairman of Newcastle, and they are determined to turn Newcastle into a top Premier League team.

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