Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has signed a $15 billion loan from a group of 17 global financial institutions.
The PIF said in a statement on Wednesday that the multi-currency revolving credit facility with banks from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the UK and US “provides PIF with access to additional capital that can be deployed at speed when convenient”.
The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund has more than doubled the size of the loan from an initial plan to raise up to $7 billion, Bloomberg reported last month.
It was the third time the $400 billion fund had tapped banks a loan, after borrowing $11 billion in its debut debt raising, and another $10 billion bridge facility in 2019 that it paid off last year.
The fund has also received cash injections in the form of the $30 billion proceeds from the sale of shares in Saudi Aramco and a $40 billion transfer from the kingdom’s foreign reserves last year as it looked to finance an asset-buying spree during a slump in equity markets caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In January, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud reiterated a pledge that the fund would pump $40 billion or more into the local economy each year, and added that it would create 1.8 million jobs directly and indirectly by 2025 – a nod to the anxiety surrounding the 15 percent unemployment rate among Saudi citizens.
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