Markets Saudi Arabia’s PIF slashes stake in Amazon By Megha Merani October 3, 2024, 11:42 AM Amazon Saudi Arabia's PIF has cut its stake in tech giant Amazon by 80% as its growth slows and costs rise $296m stake cut to $66m Amazon growth down, costs up PIF previously cut other tech stakes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has sharply reduced its holdings in Amazon, cutting its stake by nearly 80 percent in the latest quarter. The sovereign wealth fund, which manages more than $700 billion in assets, revealed in its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week that it now holds less than 350,000 shares, down from over 1.5 million shares in the previous filing in June. The current position is valued at around $66 million, a significant drop from $296 million. PIF also exited its previous call option on Amazon, signalling a strategic shift away from leveraged bets on Jeff Bezos’ $1.95 trillion tech giant. A call option is a contract that gives a share trader the right, but not the obligation, to buy a specified asset at a set price on or before a specified date. PIF spending to hit $70bn a year early, says IMF The huge ambitions of PIF come at vast expense PIF to initiate $5bn investment in Egypt The move comes as Amazon contends with regulatory scrutiny, slowing e-commerce growth, and rising costs in its cloud computing division, AWS. The reduction also underscores a broader rebalancing of PIF’s portfolio as it focuses on investments with clearer growth trajectories or sectors with more immediate alignment to Saudi Arabia’s long-term Vision 2030 economic transformation goals. The kingdom’s budget deficit will increase to 2.9 percent of GDP in 2024, according to the preliminary budget statement released by the ministry of finance, as spending on the Vision 2030 economic transformation plan continues. PIF has recently boosted its stakes in companies like Lucid Motors and Rivian while continuing to back domestic mega-projects like NEOM, the $500 billion smart city. PIF also reduced its shareholdings in several prominent tech stocks in the first quarter of 2024 including Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce and PayPal, likely in response to volatile market conditions. US regulations require institutional investors managing $100 million or more in equities to disclose their holdings at the end of each quarter.