Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding invests $268m in Europe's M&G

Kingdom Holding, the investment company controlled by Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, invested more than a billion Saudi riyals ($268.4 million) in M&G, one of the largest insurance and asset management companies in Europe.

The investment is aligned with the Riyadh company’s “strategy of investing in global market leaders" and diversifies its exposure in new and promising sectors, Kingdom Holding said in a statement to the Tadawul Stock Exchange, where its shares are traded. The company did not disclose any further details about the transaction. Established in 1848 in the UK, M&G is one of the largest savings and asset management companies in Europe with more than $370 billion in assets under management. It serves more than five million customers across 28 markets.

Kingdom Holding, which has stakes in companies such as Citigroup, JD.com, Accor, Uber, Careem, Lyft and Twitter, is a global investment company with assets of more than 50bn riyals invested across 18 sectors, including e-commerce, insurance and asset management, as well as commodities and funds.

In Saudi Arabia, it owns Kingdom Hospitals and Kingdom Schools, Saudi petrochemicals company Tasnee, budget airline flynas and private aviation company NasJet. Kingdom Holding has completed several investments in recent months. It invested 12.8bn riyals between the second quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of this year in various sectors.

In May, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, bought a 16.87 per cent stake in Kingdom Holding for $1.5bn. Earlier this year, Kingdom Holding completed an 8.29bn riyal deal to sell half of its stake in global hospitality company Four Seasons. The company retained a 23.75 per cent stake in the hotels and resorts operator after the deal.

The company's first-quarter net profit after zakat and tax surged to 5.9bn riyals, compared with 91m riyals in the same period last year.