By Hadeel Al Sayegh
DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought shares in Alphabet, Zoom Video and Microsoft as part of a wider pick of U.S. stocks, bringing the sovereign wealth fund’s second-quarter investments to about $40.8 billion.
The PIF acquired 213,000 class A shares in Alphabet, 4.7 million class A shares in Zoom and 1.8 million shares in Microsoft, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed.
It also acquired shares in JPMorgan and BlackRock, buying 3.9 million shares and 741,693 shares respectively.
The fund bought 6.3 million shares in Starbucks, and added other stocks including Adobe Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, Salesforce, Home Depot, Costco, Freeport-McMoRan, Datadog and NextEra Energy.
The PIF, which manages $620 billion in assets, is at the centre of Saudi Arabia’s plans to transform the economy by creating new sectors and diversifying revenues away from oil.
The PIF is pursuing a two-pronged strategy, building an international portfolio of investments while also investing locally in projects that will help to reduce Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil.
(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by David Goodman)