How does the “Investment Fund” pump money into video game companies support their presence in Saudi Arabia?
The founder of TrueGaming, Muhammad Al-Bassimi, said in an interview with Al-Arabiya that the increase in the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s investments in the Japanese company “Nintendo” for video games is an important step to push the company to be present in the Saudi market.
Al-Bassimi explained that the Saudi market is one of the most prominent developing markets in the global video game market, amid aspirations to strengthen its position among the largest markets in the world.
A document seen by Reuters showed that the Public Investment Fund raised its stake in the Japanese “Nintendo” for video games from 5.01% to 6.07%.
The Public Investment Fund had recently acquired stakes in Japanese video game companies “Nexon”, “Capcom” and “Kei Tecmo”.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has plowed more into Asian tech companies, taking part in Korea’s pre-PO funding for Kakao Entertainment, an app group that publishes popular anime shows and novels online, which raised $930 million from investors.
The company, a unit of Korean social media giant Kakao, said it raised 1.2 trillion won by issuing about 2.26 million shares at 255,116 won to the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Singapore-based Pwarp Investment in one of the largest financing rounds ever. In South Korea, according to “Bloomberg”, and “Al Arabiya.net” reviewed it.
Kakao Entertainment will use the capital to expand its content. The company produced a slate of shows for Netflix Inc, capitalizing on the growing interest in Korean content from “K-pop” to movies since the advent of “Squid Game.”
