The world’s first $17 billion, seven-year corporate loan is obtained by Saudi PIF

The largest self-arranged term loan ever raised for general corporate purposes was obtained by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) for $17 billion over a seven-year tenure.
The new loan is part of PIF’s medium-term capital raising strategy and its 2022 Annual Capital Raising Plan.
The loan “reflects a continuation of PIF’s strategy to diversify its sources of funding, helping to drive impactful investment in Saudi Arabia and internationally,” the sovereign wealth fund said in a statement on Wednesday.
“This new facility is a strong endorsement of PIF’s medium-term capital raising strategy,” PIF’s head of global capital finance division Fahad AlSaif said.
AlSaif said that this “is a significant achievement for PIF, raising a record-sized term facility in the longest tenor ever for a loan of its size that is subscribed to by an unprecedentedly diversified number of lenders,” adding that the wealth fund will continue to “explore a variety of debt funding sources as it delivers on its strategic objectives.”
The transaction was supported by a broad based, global syndicate of 25 financial institutions from Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia, and was more than twice oversubscribed. PIF’s original 11 billion loan facility in 2018 saw 15 financial institutions participate.
The $11 billion, five-year debt that PIF now has will be paid off early. In 2018, 15 financial institutions participated in the lending arrangement.