Yasir Al-Rumayyan has explained how the strategy of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) changed - which ultimately paved the way for Newcastle United's takeover many years later.
The PIF was originally established by royal decree in 1971 as a fairly low-key, internal investment fund that held government stakes in Saudi companies. However, in 2008, the PIF announced the launch of a sovereign wealth fund to invest in global assets.
The PIF was later given the freedom to invest without the approval of the Council of Ministers - reporting instead to the Economic and Development Affairs Council chaired by Prince Mohammed bin Salman - and Al Rumayyan went on to be appointed as governor of the fund. In an effort to diversify, the PIF has since invested in a host of Western companies, including Uber, Disney, Facebook and Boeing, amassing around $608bn in assets in the process.
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Speaking at the latest Future Investment Initiative Institute conference, Al-Rumayyan briefly touched on this shift in strategy, which changed the course of Newcastle's history nearly a year ago after the PIF bought an 80% stake in the club after forming a consortium with Amanda Staveley, Mehrdad Ghodoussi and Jamie Reuben.
"The board decided we should change the strategy of PIF," Al-Rumayyan said. "It was initially more of a developmental fund and it was decided that we want to change it to a sovereign wealth fund that invests in many generations for the nation. After the full diagnostic benchmarking exercise, we decided where we want to be.
"If you look at PIF today, it's one sovereign wealth fund but it is in fact six different pools of investments. We have two pools that invest internationally and four pools that invest domestically."
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