How much money is in the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)?
What you need to know about the Saudi Public Investment Fund - known as PIF - that just announced a merger with the PGA Tour.
Shocking news was revealed on Tuesday as the PGA Tour announced it would be joining forces with LIV Golf's financial backers - the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
In a joint statement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and the PIF, the three groups announced plans of an agreement to:
The news was shocking and sudden, as for the past year, the PGA Tour have been publicly anti-LIV Golf.
According to one player, it resulted in the PGA Tour commissioner being labeled as a "hypocrite" during a players meeting that followed the news on Tuesday.
As more information about the new agreement between the entities emerged, it was also revealed that PGA Tour players were kept in the dark about the situation.
World No. 18 Collin Morikawa even posted a Tweet saying he learned of the merger through social media:
I love finding out morning news on Twitter
— Collin Morikawa (@collin_morikawa) June 6, 2023
The Saudi Public Investment Fund is the main financial backer of LIV Golf, the rival league that lured players like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson away from the PGA Tour last year.
They were able to accomplish this largely in part due to the lucrative purses and contracts they offered. Each regular-season event holds $25m purses, with $4m alone going to the winner.
So how are the PIF able to provide such hefty purses, and how much money does the entity actually have?
Per their website, the Public Investment Fund's sources are divided into four categories referred to as: capital injections, government assets, loans and debts, and retained earnings from its investments.
They're also a stakeholder in companies like: Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Costco, Meta, Starbucks, and Activision Blizzard, per Golf Digest.
The Public Investment Fund generated $60 billion in revenue in 2021, according to the publication.
At the beginning of the year, the PIF maintained their No. 6 spot in the world's sovereign wealth funds with assets worth $607.42 billion, according to the website, Arab News.
They own 71 companies in 10 different sectors, and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, said the fund plans to reach $2 to $3 trillion in assets by the end of the decade, according to the publication
The PIF is also involved in other sports ventures, including owning the Premier League's Newcastle United.
