Saudi wealth fund reveals latest video game bet with Nexon stake

[RIYADH] Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund deepened its bet on video games, fresh from a face-saving deal that turned around its investment in Activision Blizzard.

The fund took a stake worth about US$883 million in a Japanese firm that makes titles popular in South Korea and has a tie-up with Hollywood directors behind the Avengers movies to turn their films into computer games.

The Public Investment Fund disclosed a 5.02 per cent stake in Nexon, the company behind role-playing games like MapleStory and Dungeon&Fighter, according to a filing on Thursday. It said the purpose for holding the shares is "pure investment," and the filing showed the latest purchases were made in the market from Jan 25 to Jan 27.

The PIF, as the US$500 billion fund is known, has been building up stakes in video game makers and e-sports over the past two years. Its purchase of about 37.9 million shares in Activision Blizzard, which it began acquiring in late 2020, was losing money until Microsoft. agreed to buy out the studio behind the Call of Duty series. The Saudi fund also has stakes in Electronic Arts Inc and Take Two Interactive Software.

Chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, the Public Investment Fund has earmarked about US$10 billion to buy global stocks based on a thematic strategy that focuses on areas including e-commerce and renewables, people familiar with the matter said last month.

Tokyo-based Nexon recently made a US$400 million investment in AGBO, the independent film production company co-founded by "Avengers" directors Joe and Anthony Russo, while last year it bought US$100 million of Bitcoin. BLOOMBERG