meed-logo

line1 line2 line3
SIGN IN / REGISTER

PIF’s 2025 results back 2026-30 strategy shift

3 July 2026

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has published its audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025, the first full set of annual results to follow the board’s approval of the fund’s 2026-30 strategy.

The results show a sharp improvement in profitability last year even as leverage rose and volatility in its listed equity holdings widened. The performance helps explain the strategic shift towards capital discipline and focus on private sector partnerships set out in April.

In April, PIF’s board, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al-Saud, approved a new five-year strategy structured around three portfolios, the Vision Portfolio, the Strategic Portfolio and the Financial Portfolio, and organised around six domestic ecosystems: tourism, travel and entertainment; urban development and liveability; advanced manufacturing and innovation; industrials and logistics; clean energy, water and renewables infrastructure; and Neom as a standalone ecosystem.

Project reprioritisation

The strategy followed a period of reprioritisation across PIF’s gigaproject portfolio and set out a renewed emphasis on private capital, with PIF stating it would “further enable the role of the private sector as an effective partner for sustainable economic development”.

PIF’s consolidated profit for 2025 rose to SR65.2bn ($17.4bn) in 2025, up 152% from SR25.8bn in 2024. The increase was driven by operating profit more than doubling, to SR78bn from SR34.7bn, as revenue growth outpaced cost of revenue and general and administrative expenses moderated relative to the prior year. Profit attributable to the owner of the fund rose to SR46.4bn, up from just SR1bn in 2024, a swing that accounts for most of the year-on-year improvement.

Total revenue, comprising SR312bn of operating revenue and SR137.9bn of income from investment activities, rose 8.8% to SR449.9bn. Core operating revenue alone was up 9.9%, from SR284bn in 2024.

Segment mix                                                     

The segment breakdown shows where that growth came from, and it lines up closely with the six ecosystems named in the 2026-30 strategy. Banking and financial services remained the largest single revenue line at SR85.3bn, followed by telecommunications at SR76.8bn ($20.5bn), which was down slightly on 2024. Mining revenue rose 19.3% to SR38.8bn, consistent with the strategy’s focus on industrials and logistics, while revenue from electronic gaming and related services held broadly flat at SR15.6bn, an area PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan specifically cited as a sector for strategic investment alongside artificial intelligence and renewable energy. Agricultural and livestock revenue nearly tripled, to SR7.6bn from SR2.5bn, and revenue from events operations rose to SR7.6bn from SR6bn, both pointing to the diversification into domestic ecosystems the strategy describes. Real estate operations revenue and revenue from advanced electronics and aerospace both declined slightly year-on-year.

Total assets grew 5.1% to SR4.54tn from SR4.32tn, continuing the expansion PIF has reported since 2015, when the strategy document put assets under management at $150bn, against more than $900bn today. The two figures are not directly comparable, since the IFRS consolidated balance sheet captures the full assets of consolidated subsidiaries such as the fund’s banking, telecommunications and mining operations, while PIF’s publicly cited assets-under-management figure uses a different valuation methodology, but both point to the same order of scale.

Total equity, by contrast, fell 2% to SR2.63tn ($701bn) from SR2.68tn, despite the sharp rise in reported profit. The gap is explained by other comprehensive income, which swung to a loss of SR113.3bn for the year, driven primarily by a SR112.8bn fair-value loss on equity instruments measured at fair value through other comprehensive income. In other words, unrealised mark-to-market losses on part of PIF’s listed equity portfolio outweighed the operating profit improvement, leaving total comprehensive income attributable to the owner of the fund at a loss of SR64.7bn for the year, though this was narrower than the SR154.4bn loss recorded in 2024.

Total liabilities rose 16.7%, to SR1.91tn from SR1.64tn, driven mainly by loans and borrowings, which climbed 27.2% to SR725.3bn from SR570.4bn. Property, plant and equipment grew 6.3%, to SR429.6bn, reflecting continued capital spending across PIF’s real estate and gigaproject portfolio, including the stadium, hospitality and urban development programmes.

Strategy context

The scale of PIF’s investment activity in the run-up to 2025 is set out in the April strategy announcement rather than the financial statements themselves. Between 2021 and 2025, PIF says it invested more than $199bn in new projects in Saudi Arabia, contributed $243bn to real non-oil GDP and spent more than $157bn with the local private sector, alongside growing assets under management six-fold and delivering an annualised total shareholder return of more than 7% since 2017. Read against the 2025 results, the rise in mining, gaming, agricultural and events revenue is an early indication that this domestic ecosystem investment is beginning to show up in operating performance, even as the wider balance sheet shows the cost of that expansion in higher borrowing and greater sensitivity to listed equity markets.

The results reinforce a theme demonstrated by PIF’s ongoing award of construction contracts for Expo 2030, the 2034 Fifa World Cup and other gigaprojects in the kingdom. Growth is increasingly funded through a combination of retained earnings, debt and, with the new strategy, private co-investment, rather than balance-sheet expansion alone. The explicit retention of Neom as a named ecosystem in the 2026-30 strategy, despite the cancellation of several Trojena contracts and the loss of the Asian Winter Games over the past year, suggests PIF intends to continue funding the project, but within a more disciplined framework most likely centred on industrial development around the Port of Neom, which is also known as Oxagon.

The 2025 results and the 2026-30 strategy point to a fund entering a new phase: profit generation has improved markedly, but leverage has grown and comprehensive income remains exposed to swings in listed markets, both factors consistent with a strategy that emphasises capital efficiency, institutional excellence and a larger role for private capital rather than a further scaling-up of gigaproject spending on PIF’s own balance sheet.

https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/17540500/main.gif
Colin Foreman

Register for MEED's guest program now to access this article.

Click here to register
Exclusive from Meed
Related Articles
  • Saudi Arabia battery storage awards provide fresh lift

    24 August 2026

    Commentary
    Mark Dowdall
    Power & water editor

    The latest battery storage awards provide a welcome injection of investment into Saudi Arabia’s power market, which has seen a sharp slowdown in contract awards this year.

    Saudi Power Procurement Company’s four Group 1 storage service agreements, announced last week, are worth more than $1.16bn and cover 2,000MW of capacity.

    That is significant against the wider market. According to regional project tracker MEED Projects, Saudi Arabia recorded $19.7bn in power sector contract awards in the first seven months of 2025, compared with just $2.5bn in new awards in the same period this year.

    The battery energy storage system (bess) awards therefore account for a sizeable share of the activity recorded so far this year and provide a much-needed source of new contracting activity.

    Importantly, this is not a one-off. SPPC issued the request for proposal (RFP) for its second group of bess projects in July, covering six projects with a combined capacity of 3,000MW and 12,000MWh.

    With the Group 1 tender taking around 18 months from RFP to contract award, it is reasonable to expect Group 2 contracts to be signed in 2027.

    At the same time, the awards for six independent renewable plants under Round 7 of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP), with a combined capacity of 5,300MW, are also likely to move into next year, with the latest bid deadlines now extending into September.

    Although a substantial pipeline remains in procurement, it is only once these projects move from tender to award and into construction that this pipeline translates into market activity.

    It is important that these tenders continue to progress at the pace established by the early rounds of Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy programme and now also SPPC’s independent storage provider bess scheme.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/18962923/main.jpg
    Mark Dowdall
  • Qatar receives bids for major power grid expansion

    24 August 2026

     

    Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has received bids for several packages under a major power transmission expansion project tendered in April.

    The project covers new substations at multiple voltage levels, as well as the supply and installation of 400kV extra-high-voltage power cables. The overall scheme is estimated to cost $650m.

    It is being tendered as part of Kahramaa’s 2026 procurement plan, which includes 198 tenders with a total estimated value of QR21.4bn ($5.9bn).

    According to sources, bids were submitted for the following packages on 20 August:

    • Substation packages S1 and S2, covering new 132/11kV substations (estimated cost: $200m)
    • Package S3, covering new 66/11kV substations ($50m)
    • Package S4, including a new 400/220/132kV substation, as well as upgrades and modifications to existing 400kV and 220kV substations ($200m)
    • Package S5, covering new 132/11kV substations and upgrades to existing 132kV and 66kV substations ($100m)
    • Cable packages C1 and C2, covering 400kV cables ($100m)

    Kahramaa previously stated that foreign companies not registered in Qatar would be allowed to participate in the bidding, subject to meeting specified conditions, including registration and certification requirements.

    In June, the electricity and water utility awarded contracts worth more than QR2.2bn ($604m) to expand the electricity transmission network in the country’s western region.

    The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works will support the integration of the 2GW Dukhan solar power project into Qatar’s national electricity grid. The scope includes new and upgraded substations, as well as the installation of underground cables and overhead transmission lines.

    Kahramaa said contracts were awarded to local firm Voltage Engineering, Turkiye’s Best & Betas Consortium, India’s Larsen & Toubro and South Korea’s LS Cable.

    Of Kahramaa’s 2026 procurement plan, electricity transmission projects account for QR8.9bn ($2.4bn) and include the construction of new 400/132kV substations in Al-Wukair and Al-Mashaf, as well as the expansion of 400kV substations at Ras Laffan.

    These also cover the installation of 132kV underground cables between Al-Sailiya and Al-Rayyan over a 24-kilometre route, as well as upgrades to the 400kV and 220kV networks.

    Additionally, there are 64 planned electricity distribution projects managed by the Electricity Distribution Department that cover the medium-voltage and low-voltage networks throughout Doha and the regional municipalities. 

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/18962223/main.jpg
    Mark Dowdall
  • Maaden closes $1bn term loan and credit facility

    24 August 2026

    Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) has announced the closing of its inaugural international syndicated term loan and revolving credit facilities, worth a total of $1bn.

    The $500m international term loan facility will support Maaden’s growth agenda and general corporate purposes, including funding growth projects across its portfolio.

    The $500m international revolving credit facility, which is expected to remain undrawn, provides additional committed funding capacity “as Maaden continues to scale its business and execute its long-term growth strategy”.

    The transaction “was met with strong support from the international banking market, attracting participation from a diverse group of leading international banks across key global financial markets”, including the US, Canada, Europe, China and Japan. The facilities were oversubscribed, Maaden said.

    ALSO READ: Maaden and Aramco sign deal to create joint venture

    “The level of demand reflects the global banking community’s confidence in Maaden’s financial strength, strategic direction and ambitious growth plans,” the Saudi state miner said in its statement.

    “The facilities mark another significant milestone in Maaden’s funding journey – further diversifying its sources of funding and broadening its access to global capital providers as the company continues to advance its long-term growth ambitions.

    “Maaden continues to make significant progress across its growth pipeline, expanding production, advancing major projects and accelerating exploration as it builds a world-class mining company at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation.”

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/18962086/main4516.jpg
    Indrajit Sen
  • Dubai inflation slows to 5.3% in July

    24 August 2026

    Dubai’s annual inflation rate slowed to 5.3% in July, down from 5.7% in June, as a decline in transport costs eased pressure on consumer prices, according to Emirates NBD.

    The bank said the slowdown supported its view that price growth peaked at mid-year, and it expects inflation to continue easing through the rest of 2026. Monthly price growth slowed to 0.1% in July, from 0.4% in June, the weakest pace since February.

    Transport was the clearest sign of the moderation. Annual price growth in the category slowed to 11.9% in July, from 18.1% in June, as transport costs fell 3.7% over the month. Fuel and lubricant inflation eased to 24.1% year on year, from 48.3%, tracking a decline in local petrol prices.

    Petrol remains the main swing factor in the emirate’s inflation. Transport contributed 1.1 percentage points to headline inflation in July, down from 1.7 percentage points in June. Emirates NBD said the relief may prove temporary, with Super 98 petrol prices climbing 5.9% in August to leave them 33.8% higher than a year earlier. The bank expects headline inflation to edge higher in the August figures before easing again later in the year.

    The UAE deregulated petrol and diesel prices in 2015 and reviews them monthly against global prices, meaning changes in global fuel costs pass through to consumers quickly. Transport, which includes fuel, accounts for 9% of Dubai’s consumer price index basket.

    Housing remained the largest contributor to inflation even as its impulse faded. Housing and utilities, which account for about two-fifths of the basket, added 2.8 percentage points to headline inflation. Annual price growth in the category slowed to 7.0%, from 7.4% in January.

    Food inflation edged up to 7.8% year on year, from 7.6% in June, which the bank attributed to lingering supply-chain disruption from the regional conflict. Inflation in restaurants and hotels accelerated to 4.5% year on year, from 1.7% in June.

    Emirates NBD forecasts inflation of 2.9% by year-end but said risks to that projection were tilted to the upside, given lingering pressures in food and housing.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/18961735/main1839.jpg
    Colin Foreman
  • Libya oil project on track for 2027 completion

    24 August 2026

     

    The project to develop a workers’ camp at Libya’s Erawin oil field is on track for completion next year, according to industry sources.

    The project, estimated to be worth about $50m, is being executed by the Libyan oil services company Al-Saraya Al-Hamara, headquartered in the city of Sebha.

    The Libyan company was awarded the contract in February 2025.

    The scope of the project includes:

    • Construction of an accommodation camp
    • Construction of the camp maintenance warehouse
    • Construction of the camp office
    • Construction of a fire brigade shelter
    • Construction of a kitchen and mess hall
    • Construction of a mosque
    • Construction of a laundry room
    • Construction of a clinic
    • Construction of parking facilities
    • Installation of a fire and gas system
    • Installation of a power generator
    • Construction of associated facilities

    The client on the project is Zallaf Libya Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Company.

    Zallaf Libya Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Company was established in Libya in 2013 and is wholly owned by Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corporation.

    The Erawin field development project is located about 800 kilometres south of Tripoli and 100km southwest of the El-Sharara field.

    Libya shipped its first cargo of crude from the Erawin oil field in November 2023.

    The shipment departed from Libya’s Zawiyah port and consisted of 600,000 barrels of crude.

    Australia-based Worley Parsons was appointed as the front-end engineering and design (feed) contractor for the early production facility project in 2019.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/18953632/main.jpg
    Wil Crisp