Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), headed by Crown prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), took control of augmented reality pioneer Magic Leap for $450 million, The Telegraph reported this week.
The US-based tech firm, which was supported with an injection of $400 million from the PIF in March 2018, announced at January’s Future Investment Initiative forum in Riyadh a partnership with Aramco to expand uses of its virtual reality headset technology in the oil industry.
$17 Billion Loan to Repay Existing Loan
The Wall Street Journal has earlier revealed that the PIF raised a $17 billion loan to repay an existing facility that’s due to mature next year.
The $620 billion Public Investment Fund raised the seven-year loan from a syndicate of 25 banks in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia.
The borrowing, which was twice oversubscribed, will be used to repay an existing $11 billion loan that was raised in 2018.
Jared Kushner’s New Fund Plans to Invest Saudi Money in Israel
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund committed $2 billion to the American businessman and investor who served as a senior advisor to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, agreeing to allow investment in Israeli firms for the first time, Wall Street Journal revealed.
Jared Kushner’s new private-equity fund plans to invest millions of dollars of Saudi Arabia’s money in Israeli startups, according to people familiar with the investment plan, in a sign of warming ties between two historic rivals.
The Gamer Prince
France 24 earlier published a report describing the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Slaman (MBS) as the “Gamer Prince” after hosting the international eSport gamers forum “Next World” this month.
Much like with Formula One and professional golf, the world’s biggest oil exporter has in recent years leveraged its immense wealth to assert itself on the eSports stage, hosting glitzy conferences and snapping up established tournament organisers, the report said.
In January, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund launched the Savvy Gaming Group, which acquired top eSports firms ESL Gaming and FACEIT in deals reportedly worth a total of $1.5 billion.
These moves have attracted the kind of criticism Saudi officials have come to expect, with some eSports leaders objecting to Riyadh’s human rights record.
Yet the lack of long-term financing for eSports makes the industry especially eager to do business with the Saudis, which helps explain why the backlash so far has been relatively muted, France 24 quoted analysts as saying.
Billions of dollars on video gaming
Despite the domestic and global difficult economic crisis and its involvement in Yemen’s war, Saudi Crown Prince MBS spent an insane amount of money in one game or company’s ecosystem.
Dot eSports revealed that MBS was one of the biggest spenders, affirming that he has already spent more than $6,000 on The International 2020 Battle Pass.
Over the last three years, he spent a combined $69,494 and counting on the Battle Pass alone, with $42,100 of that coming from 2018. He has been the top contributor in each of those years and set a record by reaching Level 175,000 in 2017.
MBS has been active on Dota since 2011 and has played over 10,000 matches in Dota, totalling a 5,772-5,467 win/loss record—a 51-percent win rate.
His play-time is private, but at the last time of recording, they had put 9,046 hours into Dota, along with nearly 550 hours in Team Fortress 2.
The new findings sparked large criticism on social media, where online activists accused the gamer prince of being also addicted to cocaine.
Others linked his brutal crackdown in the Kingdom with his addiction to video games.
