According to a recent Bloomberg report, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is likely to make an offer next month to buy Riyadh’s unfinished financial hub as the government attempts to rehabilitate a project plagued by delays and cost overruns.
The fund may pay about SR30 billion ($7.9 billion) — the amount already spent on the King Abdullah Financial District by the Saudi Public Pension Agency — plus the cost of undeveloped plots, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified as discussions are private. The plan includes a new company to oversee the project’s completion and management, the report said.
The financial hub, which is about 70 per cent built and due for completion in 2017, has suffered a series of setbacks. Its main contractor, the Saudi Bin Ladin Group, has stopped working on the project, while little space has been taken up in the 73 buildings being constructed.
The wealth fund is a key pillar of the biggest economic shakeup championed by Prince Mohammed to prepare the kingdom for the post-oil era. Under the plan, the government wants to make the PIF the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, with more than $2 trillion of assets including ownership of state-oil company Saudi Aramco. That would make it big enough to buy Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway.