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Eurogamer: Saudi sovereign fund acquires $3.3bn stake in Activision, EA, Take-Two

pasterpl

Member

The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the country's investment group chaired by controversial crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, has scooped up shares in big-name game publishers Activision Blizzard, EA and Take-Two worth more than $3.3bn.

The investments were made in the fourth quarter of last year, and have come to light now in a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing reported by Al Jazeera.

That filing shows the PIF now owns $1.3bn in shares in Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard and $1bn in shares for FIFA maker EA. This equates to around 3.5 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively of those companies' share totals.

It has also invested $825m in GTA publisher Take-Two, about 3.5 per cent of that company's total shares.

The PIF also owns shares in various non-video game companies, such as around $1bn in live events conglomerate Live Nation Entertainment. It has a $4.4bn stake in Uber, and a modest $150m investment in NovaGold, a company seeking to mine gold in Alaska.

These are not the first investments in video games from the Saudi Prince Mohammed. Last November, the crown prince's flagship charity bought a third of Japanese game company SNK, with an eye to increase its ownership to 51 per cent.

Back in June 2020, The League of Legends European Championship, the professional esports league run by Riot Games, announced a sponsorship deal with Saudi Arabian city-building project Neom - before backtracking on the move after significant criticism.

Prince Salman is a noted video games fan who has previously said he enjoys Call of Duty. He has also been blamed by the CIA for the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, while his rule of Saudi Arabia has kept up the country's notoriously poor human rights record, with homosexuality still criminalised with punishments ranging from floggings to the death penalty.
 

Hosam6xavi

Banned
I was so happy when i heard about this amazing news 😍

After snk now this. finally we started to invest on video games


zXlHFZQ.jpg
 

shubik

Member
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Few percents isn't much - it's just investment into what is profitable now and has good growth prospects.

If they go after control stakes in those it would be much more alarming.
 
They are publicly traded companies so anyone can own a piece of em and in case people didn't read the article. $3.3 billion sounds like a lot but they only own a tiny percentage of each company.

This is true. But, it is problematic that we have a globalist trade and financial system so morally bankrupt it allows terrorist funding organizations the ability to further their wealth and influence in this way. I'm the last person to divide things into simplistic "good" vs "evil" as reality is many shades of gray. But this is an endemic problem and exactly why there is little hope of ever cleaning up the system.
 

Hosam6xavi

Banned
Dude, you are the one who is looking like a fool. Not me. But keep enjoying your great freedom. Try criticizing your government on social media and see how this will play out for you :)
Your from germany where Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization working there with the help of your retarded left government

Nazis coming from your stupid country and now they are supporting extremists

So STFU
 

shubik

Member
Your from germany where Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization working there with the help of your retarded left government

Nazis coming from your stupid country and now they are supporting extremists

So STFU
So much bullshit in only a few words. Not bad
 

mitchman

Gold Member
For comparison, the largest sovereign fund in the world, Norway's sovereign fund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway), has invested the following in the same gaming companies:

Ubisoft Entertainment SA - USD $182,656,562 (2.19%)
Electronic Arts Inc - USD $298,609,348 (0.95%)
Activision Blizzard Inc - USD $479,928,804 (1.05%)
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc - USD $136,633,349 (0.98%)

Source: https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/holdings/component/

The fund owns 1.4% of all global stocks and shares.
 
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Arkam

Member
I love how this will be ignored by the companies publicly. Hard to wash their virtue signaling when sending profits to human rights abusers.

I know many companies have abhorrent stock holders and that’s just the way the world works. But I can still LOL at the optics next time I see EA pushing LGBT support on Social media.
 
Your from germany where Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization working there with the help of your retarded left government

Nazis coming from your stupid country and now they are supporting extremists

So STFU

A clown from SA trying to Stan for the glorious kingdom by trying to take the moral high ground.

Fact check: global Islamic Terrorism wouldn’t exist if the Saudis weren’t promoting their bastardisation of islam and financing extremism.
 

mitchman

Gold Member
I love how this will be ignored by the companies publicly. Hard to wash their virtue signaling when sending profits to human rights abusers.

I know many companies have abhorrent stock holders and that’s just the way the world works. But I can still LOL at the optics next time I see EA pushing LGBT support on Social media.
Publicly traded companies can't control who buys their stock and they certainly do not want to publicly say something about this, and I'm not even sure they can even legally comment on it.
 

Majmun

Member
I wonder what kind of game would come out of that country. And how mad the Western (social)media would react to it.

I actually want to see it.
 

sublimit

Banned
I wonder what kind of game would come out of that country. And how mad the Western (social)media would react to it.

I actually want to see it.
I'd love to see a big budget game one day that has a Saudi Arabia/middle East setting (with its counterpart cultural influences) and is also made by Saudi developers. That could end up being something fresh and unique (at least for us Westerners).
 

Haggard

Banned
So there will be a secret level in the next Diablo where you`re up against jews, shiites and journalists then?
 

Majmun

Member
I'd love to see a big budget game one day that has a Saudi Arabia/middle East setting (with its counterpart cultural influences) and is also made by Saudi developers. That could end up being something fresh and unique (at least for us Westerners).

Of course, me too. My partner is Arab (Iraqi) and I love the culture (food, art and the music etc)
I would love to see the culture being properly displayed in a big budget game as well.

But what I was trying to say is that currently everything is being put under a magnifier. The country is very conservative and ruled by dictatorship. There are basically no human rights and women are not treated equaly. If this shows up a little bit in the project...expect outrage in the media. The cancel culture guru's will have a field day with this.
 
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