When BlackRock landed a $5 billion investment pledge from Riyadh in April, pictured smiling alongside Larry Fink and Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al Rumayyan was an executive seen as a rising force within the sovereign investor.
That man, Yazeed Al Humied, is one of the fund’s two deputy governors and runs its Middle East and North Africa unit. While this was regarded as the less glamorous arm of the PIF for years, the $925 billion fund’s growing domestic focus means that Al Humied is now increasingly being courted by the titans of investing.
He was the executive handpicked to deliver a blunt message to firms eyeing business and big checks from Riyadh. Foreign outfits should set up “not just their reception desks but their kitchens” in Saudi Arabia if they want to continue raising money from the PIF, Al Humied told attendees at a summit last year.
He’s now being sought out by international firms looking to set up Saudi entities and raise money for domestic investments, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified discussing confidential information.
Since such agreements are mostly routed through the fund’s local investments arm, Al Humied’s leading the charge for a more aggressive PIF that, like other Gulf funds, is increasingly asking big money managers to offer concessions in return for cash.
In one sign that he’s been groomed for a higher profile role, Al Humied is among many senior executives who have been offered training similar to what was made available to Al Rumayyan, according to one of the people. This includes language coaching and tips on how to interact with executives at the top echelons of world finance, the person said.
Representatives for the fund declined to comment.
Employee Number 3
Al Humied, who is in his early forties, and Al Rumayyan, 54, go back over a decade, having previously worked together at the Saudi markets regulator. He jumped at the chance to join the PIF during the early days of its transformation without even asking questions about salary or the role, Al Rumayyan said in a 2022 interview.
It was the same for Turqi Al Nowaiser, who is in his late forties and oversees international investments. “They believed in the cause, and maybe in me personally, and of course in Prince Mohammed,” Al Rumayyan said at the time.
Both executives sit on key PIF committees, giving them oversight of all the fund’s activities. Officially PIF employee number 3, Al Humied’s role was viewed as a lower-profile one compared to Al Nowaiser — employee number 2 — even after both were named deputy governors in 2021.
This was a time when the PIF routinely splashed out large sums on overseas deals that upended business, technology and even sport. It famously made a verbal commitment of $45 billion to Masayoshi Son’s Vision Fund over the course of a 45-minute meeting. The tech vehicle backed a bevy of startups, and many of those bets blew up.
Now, with crude prices below levels Saudi Arabia needs to balance its budget and foreign direct investment well shy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $100 billion target, the PIF has emerged as the main vehicle driving the de-facto ruler’s trillion-dollar Vision 2030 agenda.
That’s prompted a reckoning for Riyadh, and officials are increasingly doing deals with an eye on bringing in firms and expertise into the kingdom. Wall Street giants, who previously raised money from the fund to invest overseas, are being asked to deploy it within the region.
“Local investments will likely stay as the most significant part of PIF’s portfolio by far,” said Diego Lopez, founder and managing director of Global SWF. “In that context, we see the role of Yazeed as increasingly important, especially for the next five years until the completion of Saudi Vision 2030, if not beyond.”
BlackRock, Brookfield
Al Humied already manages close to two-thirds of the PIF’s assets, including its two largest asset pools.
Domestic impact and the acquisition of technology to develop the Saudi workforce is included in two of five criteria that the PIF says it uses to assess how it makes investments. The others include returns, risk, the opportunity to get access to a new company or industry or synergies with existing businesses.
