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Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has cut down on its US stocks in the first quarter of the year, slashing the value of the direct holdings in those equities by nearly half.
The $700 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF), which held US-traded stocks with a value of $35 billion by year-end 2023, saw its holdings down to $18 billion as of March 31, according to a Bloomberg report that cited data from a Form 13F filed Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Bloomberg analysis of the form revealed the kingdom has cut down on its various tech stocks, which included stakes of $600 million or more in each of Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Salesforce Inc. The direct holdings were replaced with call options on a lesser number of shares.
The news agency further stated PIF had also dropped a $602 million stake in BlackRock Inc., a $942 million investment in Carnival Corp. and a $757 million position in Booking Holdings Inc.
Information on the holdings was revealed as the US exchange requires institutional investors that trade $100 million or more of equities to disclose their holdings at the end of each quarter through a Form 13F.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Daniel Luiz)