Saudi’s PIF to flex its financial muscle
Interview with the secretary general of the Public Investment Fund.
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| Mansour Al Maiman: IPOs are a priority |
One piece of research recently claimed that a private investor had bought an undisclosed stake in banking group Samba Kingdom Holding, the investment vehicle of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Middle East’s richest man. The sale was despite Samba being one of Alwaleed’s oldest investments. Euromoney has learnt that in fact the buyer was part of the Saudi government: the Public Investment Fund. It is just one example of the ever-extending tentacles of a fund that to many remains obscure.
Mansour Al Maiman, the secretary general of the Public Investment Fund, tells Euromoney that one of his institution’s priorities is a public offering of National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia’s biggest bank by assets.
"Our professional position is that NCB is ready to be floated," he says, expressing the hope that the privatization will come within the next year, market conditions permitting.
Al Maiman also mentions Marafiq, a government-owned infrastructure company, when talking about PIF’s next privatization projects.
The Public Investment Fund controls a huge chunk of the Saudi economy, and apart from its project finance activities, it is charged with offering stakes of public companies to the stock market.
