Saudi Arabia's wealth fund to tap debt market for second time this year
SAUDI Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has hired banks to tap the debt market for the second time this year with an Islamic dollar bond, a document emailed to the banks on Monday (Feb 26) and reviewed by Reuters showed.
The Public Investment Fund (PIF), which manages more than US$700 billion in assets, mandated Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Standard Chartered as joint global coordinators to arrange investor meetings starting on Monday for the offering, a senior unsecured seven-year sukuk, the document said.
The PIF, along with the government of Saudi Arabia, last month joined a wave of emerging market issuers seeking to take advantage of rising demand for debt before central banks are expected to lower interest rates later this year.
It raised US$5 billion through the sale of a triple-tranche conventional bond in January and US$3.5 billion from a sukuk deal in October. A sukuk is a financial offering that complies with Islamic religious rules regarding interest.
The PIF is the chosen vehicle of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, to drive an economic agenda aimed at cutting the country’s reliance on oil. Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter.
The PIF accounted for about a quarter of the US$124 billion spent by sovereign wealth funds worldwide last year, according to a report in January from industry specialist Global SWF.
The fund plans to ramp up its deployment of capital to US$70 billion a year after 2025, from US$40 billion to US$50 billion currently, PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan said last week in Miami. REUTERS
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