After the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman took control of the Sovereign Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia he began managing investment inside and outside Saudi Arabia, to carry out projects to diversify the economy instead of relying on oil only,
The Saudi Sovereign Fund's first investment was in Japan, where the Saudi Crown Prince announced an investment of $100 billion in the SoftBank in Tokyo, which is famous for investing in modern technology fields, including artificial intelligence and robotics. However, the Saudi Investment Authority said it would contribute two-thirds of the required budget.
Specialists in the field of investment said that investing with the bank is a correct decision to diversify the economy, and it would be a good option to complete Vision 2030 provided there is a highly experienced investment competence that can cooperate with SoftBank.
The Saudi Crown Prince launched his economic vision and announced the diversification of the Kingdom’s economy through the fields of technology by investing in the NEOM city project at a cost of $500 billion, where the bank promised to diversify sources of income to the Kingdom.
In 2018, after the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his country’s consulate in Istanbul by Saudi intelligence officials, media started talking about the negative nature of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the SoftBank Group.
At this time, the Western media began to show the flaws in the dictatorial rule of bin Salman and Soft Bank, and how it tops the list of institutions that cause a defect in all emerging companies.
Saudi Arabia announced its withdrawal from participating in the second financial portfolio, after having great losses in the first portfolio, in addition to the problems of the portfolio announced by the managing director of “Mena Advisors”, a research and investment advisory company in London.
At the end of 2019, major problems began to appear in the American company (WeWork), in which SoftBank had announced its investment of $ 18.5 billion, in addition to other companies that were not announced at the time.
SoftBank ended the year 2019 with financial losses estimated at about 13 billion dollars.
In 2020, the losses continued and MBS’s economic crisis increased in his country, and SoftBank’s financial crises increased as well due to the Covid 19 and the decline in the shares of the companies in which SoftBank invested Saudi money, as the financial portfolio lost during the first months of 2020 an amount of $18 billion.
The financial losses did not stop in 2019, as the losses of MBS and SoftBank continued despite some mysterious gains for Saudi Arabia, which we will discuss soon.
