Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund increases their stake in Nintendo to 8.26% (UPDATES)

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increased their stake in Nintendo to 8.26%, making them the largest foreign shareholder of the big red. This comes just two days after the PIF increased their stake to 7.08%, a move that could have been motivated by the recent decline in Nintendo’s stock prices following the latest financial results. The PIF is clearly confidence in the future prospects of Nintendo. They also have also increased their stake in EA and Take-Two Interactive from 5.1% to 5.8% and 5.3% to 6.8%, respectively. Nintendo themselves are the only ones now that own more shares than the PIF.

To avoid any confusion, this investment does not change anything in how Nintendo operates unless Nintendo themselves announces some changes due to an alliance like they did when they collaborated with DeNA.

UPDATE: Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, the vice chair of gaming division of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has said they are considering further investment in Nintendo, but they are in no rush to do so. That said, if they were to make the move to increase their stake, Prince Faisal said it would be done in a “friendly” way.

UPDATE 2: Following comments from Prince Faisal, Savvy Games Group has said that they’re not just looking at upping their stake in Nintendo specifically, but Japanese game companies in general. Along with that, Savvy Games Group noted that Prince Faisal is not an official spokesperson for the Public Investment Fund.