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Total assets under management (AUM) by public and private investment funds in Saudi rose 30% y-o-y to SAR 660.2 bn in 3Q 2024, according to the Capital Market Authority’s quarterly statistical bulletin (pdf). The report points to a total of 1,464 funds operating in the Kingdom, with private funds accounting for the lion’s share (1,154) of that figure.
The breakdown: Public fund assets grew 36.7% y-o-y to SAR 160.1 bn in 3Q 2024, and were up 10.4% q-o-q. Holdings of money market instruments represented the largest asset category held by public funds at SAR 44.9 bn, and were up 39.5% y-o-y. These were followed by equities (up 62.4% at SAR 43.8 bn), real estate investment trusts (up 6.6% at SAR 29.3 bn), and debt instruments (up 1.9% at SAR 22.2 bn).
Local assets held by public funds in the third quarter were up 41.8% y-o-y at SAR 134.4 bn, while foreign assets grew 15.1% to SAR 25.7 bn. The number of Saudi public funds stood at 310 during the period, up from 283 a year earlier, while subscribers to public funds increased 50.6% at 1.6 mn subscribers.
REMEMBER- The PIF’s AUM rose 21% during the first ten months of the year to SAR 3.49 tn. By the end of 2023, PIF’s AUM rose 29% y-o-y to SAR 2.9 tn, the fund said previously. Some 76% of those assets were in local investments, while 20% were international investments, and another 3% of the portfolio was in treasuries. The majority of the fund’s AUM (85%) were managed internally, while the balance was managed externally.
On the private side: Private fund assets in the third quarter were up 28% y-o-y at SAR 500.1 bn, and increased 7.2% q-o-q. Real estate funds accounted for SAR 208 bn of private fund assets, closely followed by equities at SAR 207.4 bn. The number of private funds by the third quarter of this year stood at 1,154, up from 926 a year prior, while subscribers were up 55.6% at 131.4k.
Who holds what in the Saudi equities market? Institutional investors continued to account for the lion’s share of the equity market, with 95.5% ownership, according to the report. Saudi public entities also held the largest portion of equities (64%) during the quarter, followed by Saudi private firms (18.2%), Saudi individual professional investors (4.9%) and foreign qualified investors (3.4%).
IPOs and listings were a mixed bag: Four offerings were approved for Tadawul’s main market in 3Q, with 14 requests pending approval, compared to no approvals and five pending requests during the same period last year. Meanwhile, the Nomu parallel market saw eight offerings and listings approved and 31 pending requests during the third quarter, compared to four approvals and 41 pending requests a year earlier.
