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Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund wants to keep investing without dipping further into its own pockets, and it is looking at new ways to raise the money.
One idea is to raise cash against the steady income some of its companies already earn, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The fund is still at an early stage of studying the options.
What it means, simply
The technique is called securitization. Think of a landlord who owns a building full of paying tenants. Instead of waiting years to collect the rent, the landlord sells investors the right to those future payments and gets a large sum of cash today.
PIF would do the same with some of its companies. Investors would hand over money now and be repaid from the income those companies generate over time.
The fund keeps ownership of the companies. It just turns their future earnings into cash it can use now.
Why PIF needs it
The fund manages more than $900 billion and has spent nearly a decade building companies in real estate and technology, plus a new airline, under the Vision 2030 plan to cut the kingdom's reliance on oil.
Many of those companies are still years from paying back. The war on Iran has added to the pressure on the fund to show returns.
Its old sources of money are also thinning. Government transfers, including a 16% stake in Aramco, have slowed, and Aramco's smaller payouts have cut PIF's dividend income. Borrowing has filled the gap: PIF raised $26 billion in debt in 2025.
The other options
Securitization is not the only idea. One source said the fund would look at every way to raise capital, including selling stakes in mature assets to fund companies that are still young.
It could also trim its holdings in listed companies, sell bonds to international investors or raise money from export credit agencies, the source said.
PIF has already used that last route. Last week it raised $3 billion in loans guaranteed by Italy's export agency, and in July it signed a pact with the US Export-Import Bank for up to $15 billion.
What PIF says
Asked for comment, the fund pointed Reuters to its 2026 to 2030 strategy. That plan says the next phase rests on "greater private sector and capital markets participation in Saudi Arabia."
It adds that as more of its investments mature, the way its companies fund their growth "is expected to evolve."
Why it matters
For years PIF was the money behind almost every big Saudi project. A shift to securitization and stake sales would mean outside investors carrying more of that cost, and PIF acting more like a manager that recycles cash than a fund that writes cheques.
What to watch
Which companies the fund picks first. The best candidates would be mature businesses with steady, predictable income.
