The BlackRock logo is displayed at the company’s headquarters in New York City on November 14, 2022.
Leonardo Munoz | Getty Images
Asset manager BlackRock will launch an investment platform in Riyadh with the help of a $5 billion anchor investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.
Tuesday’s announcement followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between BlackRock’s Saudi division and the PIF aimed at boosting the growth of capital markets in the oil-rich Gulf state.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $10 trillion in assets under management, will “launch investment strategies across all asset classes for the Saudi market, including public and private markets, managed by a Riyadh-based investment team,” it said in a joint press release from The company and the PIF read.
The new platform will be called BlackRock Riyadh Investment Management or BRIM.
BRIM aims to help attract foreign institutional investment to Saudi Arabia, develop the Saudi asset management industry, expand local capital markets and investor diversification, and support the development of the Kingdom’s asset management talent, the press release said.
The initiative, as well as many other initiatives by the PIF, which manages $925 billion in assets under management, contributes to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, a multi-trillion-dollar project aimed at modernizing the Kingdom’s economy and to diversify away from oil. Central to these efforts is attracting major international institutions, investments and foreign talent to Saudi Arabia.
The establishment of BRIM is intended to promote ““Continuing growth in the Saudi capital market ecosystem and enabling a growing international investment management sector based in Saudi Arabia,” the press release said.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in the statement that the kingdom “has become an increasingly attractive destination for international investment as Vision 2030 is realized.”
The asset management giant has worked with Saudi Arabia for years and made clear in 2018 that it would not back down despite major controversy over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
To further strengthen its ties with the kingdom, BlackRock gave Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser a board seat in July 2023. Aramco is the largest oil company in the world.
At the time, BlackRock said the move reflected the company’s focus on the Middle East as part of its long-term strategy.
—CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.
Source link
2024-05-01 16:42:04
www.cnbc.com
