Saudi Arabia Keeps Spending Ridiculous Money on Nintendo

gamerant.com:

The Saudi Public Investment Fund is doubling down on its Nintendo bet, having just announced it added the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars to its existing stake in the Japanese gaming giant. This development arrives barely a month after Saudi Arabia upped its Nintendo stake to 6%, thus becoming the fifth-largest shareholder of the Kyoto-based company.

The Saudi fund started making major bets in the gaming space circa 2020, when it became the largest shareholder of legendary Japanese fighting game developer SNK. Since then, the Middle Eastern country's gaming investments grew increasingly aggressive, with Saudi Arabia recently investing in Activision and EA, as well as multiple eSports organizations. Its Nintendo bets started in May 2022, when the Public Investment Fund acquired a 5% stake in the company, valued at around $2.7 billion at the time.

Saudi Arabia Now Owns Nearly All of SNK

The state-owned group now announced it has raised its controlling holdings of Nintendo to 7.08%, a 1.01% increase since mid-January. Based on the current number of outstanding Nintendo shares and their average price over the last month, this development means Saudi Arabia invested around $550 million in the Switch manufacturer over the last four weeks alone. However, it might have actually upped its stake at a lower price, assuming it took advantage of the fact that Nintendo's stock saw a significant 8% decline on February 8, possibly prompted by the emergence of some notably lowered projections for the company's next fiscal year. For example, Wedbush analysts reduced their anticipated Nintendo earnings from an earlier $0.67 to $0.72 per share for the forecast period ending March 31, 2024.

Either way, the February 8 decline saw