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Yasir Al-Rumayyan's announcement after Aston Villa diehard's Newcastle United comment

Newcastle United chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has outlined the PIF's plan to increase investments in Europe from $85bn to $170bn by 2030

Newcastle United chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan
Newcastle United chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan(Image: YouTube)

Yasir Al-Rumayyan has announced that the PIF intend to double their outlay in Europe by the start of the next decade.

Al-Rumayyan previously revealed that the fund planned to scale back the share of international investments by around a third in order to focus more on the domestic economy. However, nothing has changed when it comes to the PIF's commitment to Newcastle United as an existing project.


Indeed, following a meeting with Rumayyan and Newcastle executives at Matfen Hall in Northumberland back in February, boss Eddie Howe said the ambition and drive to be successful is still very much there from everyone connected with the club'. It was just last week that the Newcastle boss reiterated that 'the race and ambition to improve is really aggressive here' not only in the short-term this summer but, also, when it comes to long-term infrastructure projects.


Darren Eales, similarly, previously acknowledged that, in terms of scale, Newcastle represented one of the PIF's smallest investments, but the Magpies CEO added that 'in terms of profile and their investment, it's one of their highest'. That was apparent at the latest edition of the Future Investment Initiative summit in Albania.

Sir Noel Quinn, the former global CEO of HSBC, stopped short of wishing Al-Rumayyan 'great success' at Newcastle as the Aston Villa fan introduced the Magpies chairman on stage. Al-Rumayyan, in response, said he 'thought you were going to miss that I'm also the chairman of Newcastle' before the Saudi outlined the PIF's investment plans in Europe for the next five years.

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"We have been investing in Europe since the revamp of PIF," he said. "Since 2017 up until 2024, we have deployed about $85bn between investments and procurement. About $18bn in investments and, also, procurement of about $67bn.

"We are anticipating continuing to invest and this amount will grow to $170bn. This will have an impact on the EU GDP. Currently the impact we have done is $52bn and, by 2030, it's going to be about $105bn.

"We have created about 254,000 direct and indirect jobs through our investments and procurement from the EU. We are projecting this number will go up.

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"We started our operations in Europe through our London office, which was operational by 2019, and I'm going to be in Paris for the inauguration for our newest office internationally. We have investments in the UK. We own about 15% of Heathrow Airport, Newcastle, 40% of Selfridges and we also have a significant minority in Aston Martin."

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