Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is reportedly hoping to get involved in the Hundred tournament by providing funding for a ninth team to be added to the cricket franchise.
A report by the United Kingdom-based daily ‘The Times’ stated that a new northeast team based in Durham is expected to be added soon, and that the team should be prepared for competition by 2026 or 2027.
At this point, the reported investment’s financial specifics are still unknown. By offering to sell up to 49% of the teams’ shares, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), which oversees the franchise tournament, began the process of securing private investment in the competition in April 2024.
The remaining 51% will be under the control of the host venues, who may decide to sell all or part of it. With USD 925 billion in assets, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia already owns a portion of Newcastle United, a Premier League team. In June 2024, PIF increased its ownership of the football team from 80% to 85%.
Although there have been prior hints that Saudi Arabia has an interest in cricket, if the deal goes through, this will be PIF’s first significant investment in the game.
Bloomberg revealed in November 2023 about Saudi Arabia’s interest in purchasing the cricketing rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the most popular franchise-based T20 tournament in the world.
It has been reported that advisors to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had preferred that India’s domestic franchise become a holding company, with Saudi acquiring a USD 5 billion stake.
The nation’s governing cricket body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), dismissed rumours of an overseas investment at the time, according to Jay Shah, its secretary.
Meanwhile, PIF announced in a statement that it has inked six memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with major Chinese financial institutions, valued at a combined USD 50 billion.
The statement also said that the MoUs were signed with the following institutions: China Construction Bank (CCB), China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (SINOSURE), Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM), Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Bank of China (BoC), and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).
The documents cover areas of cooperation such as encouraging two-way capital flows through debt and equity. As one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, the PIF is already heavily invested in China. Recently, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said that Beijing was willing to strengthen its development strategy with Saudi Arabia and increase its trade and investment with the country.
He made the remarks after holding talks with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of affairs on Saudi Arabia’s economic cooperation with China, who is also the PIF’s governor and chairman of state-run oil firm Saudi Aramco. On that trip, Rumayyan led a large Saudi delegation and also met with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng.
“Although Saudi Arabia has strong ties with the United States, officials on Capitol Hill are increasingly wary of Riyadh’s growing cooperation with its rival superpower Beijing. The energy ties between Beijing and Riyadh are particularly strong. China is Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer of crude oil and the two countries have heavily partnered in building factories and projects for other commodities, such as solar energy and petrochemicals. For example, on July 21, Saudi Aramco announced that it acquired a $3.4 billion stake in China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. Ltd,” Al-Monitor reported.
The PIF has also heavily invested in Chinese technology, including artificial intelligence (AI). Alat, a PIF-owned investment firm established earlier 2024, announced in February a joint venture with one of China’s biggest surveillance technology companies, Dahua Technology, that will develop its first overseas manufacturing facility in the Kingdom. The same month, the PIF-owned Jafal Fund of Funds upped its investment eWTP Arabia Capital, a joint venture capital fund with China’s Alibaba that invests in energy and technology start-ups.