Kingdom Holding, one in every of Saudi Arabia’s highest-profile traders, poured a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} into Russian power companies shortly earlier than and after the invasion of Ukraine this 12 months, the group disclosed in a submitting on Sunday.
Majority owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Kingdom made the investments even as western leaders sought to extend strain on Moscow and threatened sanctions towards Russia, which they started imposing in late February.
The roughly $500mn investments included $364mn in Gazprom in February, with the remaining going into Rosneft and Lukoil that month and in March. President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Prince Alwaleed, a Saudi billionaire, was detained in 2017 on the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh with different tycoons and royals in what the authorities known as a corruption sweep.
Critics stated it was a powerplay by the ascendant Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to consolidate his place towards an influential outdated guard. The state stated it retrieved $100bn in ill-begotten funds.
Prince Alwaleed, whose grandfather based Saudi Arabia, was freed after reaching an settlement with the federal government, though he has by no means disclosed the small print. Other tycoons have been launched after transferring funds or partially ceding management of their corporations to the federal government.
The authorities’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, stated it acquired a 16.8 per cent stake in Kingdom Holding in May, months after the investments. But it will be unlikely for a big Saudi firm to conduct large investments in Russia with out the federal government’s blessing given the western strain on Moscow.
Other investments disclosed on Sunday embody a $220mn funding in Phoenix Group, a UK pensions and financial savings firm, and $221mn within the funding supervisor M&G. It additionally made investments in Uber, Lyft, Alibaba and BlackRock TCP Capital. Kingdom Holding stated these have been a part of a three-year-long funding technique totalling $3.4bn. The firm has investments within the Four Season resort chain and in addition owns a stake in Twitter.
Saudi Arabia has fostered shut ties with Russia, with each nations co-operating in Opec+ on oil manufacturing. Its ties to Washington have been strained since President Joe Biden got here to workplace, after vowing throughout his marketing campaign to show Saudi Arabia right into a pariah over the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi brokers. The CIA stated Prince Mohammed was answerable for the operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi, one thing the prince has denied.
Biden has since needed to backtrack on his pledge and he visited the nation in July, assembly with Prince Mohammed as he pushed for extra oil manufacturing to offset costs and inflation.