Saudi Arabia now owns 5.01% of Nintendo

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

The purchase was made by the Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that makes investments on behalf of the kingdom. The PIF is controlled by Saudi Arabia’s controversial crown prince and effective ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.

A Nintendo spokesperson told Bloomberg that it had learned about the investment from news reports and would not comment further.

This is just the latest, most high-profile, and largest in a series of investments made by Saudi Arabia’s PIF in the video game industry, which has had a particular focus on Japanese firms (due in part to the weak yen). Earlier this year, it acquired 5% stakes in Capcom and Nexon (which is South Korean, but trades on the Tokyo stock exchange). In late 2020, the PIF made a $3 billion investment in smaller stakes in American games publishing giants EA, Activision Blizzard, and Take-Two. A subsidiary of the crown prince’s foundation also owns almost all of Metal Slug and The King of Fighters developer SNK.

Video games are a prominent area of investment for PIF, although far from the only one. One of its largest investments is a $3.5 billion, 5% stake in Uber. It owns smaller stakes in Disney, Facebook, and Boeing. In 2021, PIF led a consortium that purchased Newcastle United Football Club, of the English Premier League.

Analysts differ on the reasons for PIF’s video game investments. Some suggest they are pure speculation, gambling on the wave of consolidation rolling through the games industry at the moment. (PIF stands to make a profit on its Activision Blizzard shares if the $70 billion Microsoft acquisition goes through, though it’s a brave investor who sees Nintendo as an acquisition target.) Others think that Saudi Arabia is interested in building its own content industry and is keen to learn from companies in this sector. Another theory is that the investments are a sort of financial PR or whitewashing, aligning the undemocratic and repressive state more closely with global culture.

Most companies would hesitate to welcome that alignment, however, and the spectre of Saudia Arabia exerting its influence on the global cultural stage is a worrying one.

Big yikes…..
Full article:
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23122317/nintendo-saudi-arabia-investment-crown-prince-pif

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Escrito originalmente por Pinky:

Escrito originalmente por The Knight:

Well they can still have an influence on decisions. Look what’s happening on arabia a quote from the article:
there are constant crackdowns on protest, dissent and freedom of expression; women are discriminated against, and LGBTQ people are criminalized and persecuted
Well how does this sound now huh

What does that have to do with Nintendo shares?

Well he probably means how they can influence games from now on

[davidb11]

Escrito originalmente por Eeeaea:

Escrito originalmente por davidb11:

That literally makes no sense at all though.
Not one bit.
Someone at 5% can't do anything. They literally cannot influence people.




They have 5% shares, Not 50%!
Why are people saying such absurd things?

5% is a large sway.
Even top tier investors rarely own more than 3% of any given company.
You don't need to own 50% of a company to influence it, you only need to own enough to turn investor heads.

That's not how it works. You need a lot more than 5% to ever sway anyone at all.
It's literally not even possible to sway a company unless you get more than 50% of everyone on your side.
And that's literally not possible with only a 5% share.
And again, no one is a Supervillain with a name like Lex Luthor here. :P

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

They may not be able to make big major decisions with that stake but they have something to say which is worth a lot as well. Downplaying it doesn’t make it better

[Uncle Sam]

Escrito originalmente por Pinky:

Escrito originalmente por The Knight:

Well they can still have an influence on decisions. Look what’s happening on arabia a quote from the article:
there are constant crackdowns on protest, dissent and freedom of expression; women are discriminated against, and LGBTQ people are criminalized and persecuted
Well how does this sound now huh

What does that have to do with Nintendo shares?

Change in a company can only happen when the majority support it.

That's if the Saudis play by the "rules". They got the resources, the personal with training, the tools and the connections to "shift" the balance of decisions if they want to do it.
Edit: However, the Saudis most likely just want profit out of Nintendo and nothing more for the moment.

[davidb11]

Escrito originalmente por Green gunner:

Escrito originalmente por Pinky:

What does that have to do with Nintendo shares?

Change in a company can only happen when the majority support it.

That's if the Saudis play by the "rules". They got the resources, the personal with training, the tools and the connections to "shift" the balance of decisions if they want to do it.

That's literally not how it works man.

I don't know why you think Saudi Arabia makes Colombian Drug Cartels look nice and friendly and completely tolerant. :P

Seriously.
Again, Saudi Arabia was once the US's only friend.
Now they're a bit like our "Allies."

Look, I know the Middle East has a lot of flaws, but it's basically impossible to fight them.

[Under there]

Escrito originalmente por davidb11:

Escrito originalmente por Eeeaea:

5% is a large sway.
Even top tier investors rarely own more than 3% of any given company.
You don't need to own 50% of a company to influence it, you only need to own enough to turn investor heads.

That's not how it works. You need a lot more than 5% to ever sway anyone at all.
It's literally not even possible to sway a company unless you get more than 50% of everyone on your side.
And that's literally not possible with only a 5% share.
And again, no one is a Supervillain with a name like Lex Luthor here. :P

No you don't.
Yes it is.
5% (5 billion Dollars) of 100~ billion dollars (Nintendo's Net Worth) is enough to sway investors.

[davidb11]

Sorry, but it's impossible to ever claim that 5% of anything is enough to sway investors.
That simply is not how it works.
EVER Also, those investors have more money than you do, because they all have bigger shares. Period..

You cannot ever claim otherwise, because there is no evidence of this ever being a thing in the entire history of Businesses and shareholding!

Seriously, show me ONE EXAMPLE of this ever happening in the last 70 years! One single example.

[Under there]

Escrito originalmente por davidb11:

Sorry, but it's impossible to ever claim that 5% of anything is enough to sway investors.
That simply is not how it works.
EVER.

You cannot ever claim otherwise, because there is no evidence of this ever being a thing in the entire history of Businesses and shareholding!

Seriously, show me ONE EXAMPLE of this ever happening in the last 70 years! One single example.

Show me one example of 5% NOT swaying invesotrs.
I'm not meeting your impossible request, you don't understand shareholding. You do not need to own 50% of a company for your input to influence it, THAT is absurd.
Someone with 5 Billion Dollars invested in a company has the potential to hold influence over anyone who owns less.

[davidb11]

That makes sense, but since I've never once heard of this kind of hostile takeover happening, I'm going to guess you're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Sure you can influence people with less control than you, but 5% is probably the minimum control people have.
There's maybe a few 2% people.

However, I think it's best we wait 5 years and then come back and see if the world has changed because of Nintendo having 5% owned by Saudi Arabia.

I really don't get why people think this is end of the world here.
It's not like someone gave Saudi Arabia a nuclear bomb. :P

[Under there]

Escrito originalmente por Pinky:

Escrito originalmente por Eeeaea:

No you don't.
Yes it is.
5% (5 billion Dollars) of 100~ billion dollars (Nintendo's Net Worth) is enough to sway investors.

Well then, let's wait and see what happens.

In 5 or 10 years time, if nothing has changed at Nintendo due to the Saudi's investment, then this moral panic may have all been for nothing.

It may be, I'm just saying 5% is a large stake, and 9% ala Elon is enormous. Its the reason why its getting so much attention in the first place. Folks see small percentages but don't realize thats out of 100, and that 100 includes EVERYONE who invests in said company.

[Adversary]

They're just diversifying their portfolio is all. Having all your eggs in one basket is what Venezuela did with oil. Now they don't even have eggs or the basket.

Hell, they probably had to eat the basket.

[davidb11]

ALso, Elon buying Twitter should be a bigger concern than him just having 9% shares.
I don't see how a small amount gobbling up even smaller amounts is going to be massive beyond words.
IT has to reach a critical mass before it can ever have an affect on anything.
As long as it does not reach 51%, any sub group that owns shares can be completely rejected when they make a deal.
Majority rules is how it works.

[Teefa]

"Let's wait 5 years to see if fascism is bad" would make for an excellent epitaph.

[davidb11]

Escrito originalmente por TDPS:

"Let's wait 5 years to see if fascism is bad" would be an excellent quote for a headstone.

If you're going to ignore how that's not how Fascism works, you need to leave the thread. I'm not trying to be mean, but we're actually discussing a big deal.
Bringing in random statements is chaos itself and makes no sense.

Complete Randomness is only valid for bots.
You don't see to be a robot.

Bottom line, no country is currency fascist because of outside corporations working inside every country.
Also, Open borders, something no Fascist government can have and still be considered Fascist.
It's like if you let Free Speech in your country, you can't be Fascist. :P

[Under there]

Escrito originalmente por davidb11:

ALso, Elon buying Twitter should be a bigger concern than him just having 9% shares.

Its a large concern, to be sure, but investors drive companies. If Elon does something that investors don't like, they withdraw and the company flops. I'm sure you can see why him holding 9% stake is a powerful position.
For reference CEOs rarely hold more than a percent or so of the companies they work for, if that.