Saudi crown prince talks investments with Softbank chief in New York

Fayez Nureldine | AFP | Getty Images

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh, on October 24, 2017.

Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince is widely expected to drum up investment capital during the New York City leg of his U.S. visit, and he appears to be starting with an old investment partner.

The Saudi press agency on Monday tweeted a photo of Mohammed bin Salman and Masayoshi Son, the CEO and chairman of Japanese tech investment giant Softbank. Prince Mohammed and Masayoshi are “looking for a number of investment opportunities” according to the tweet, which was hashtagged #CrownPrinceinNYC.

Tweet

The Saudi Press Agency did not immediately return a request for confirmation that the meeting took place on Monday.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is one of the primary investors in Softbank’s roughly $100 billion Vision Fund, which is focused on funding technology ventures, including Uber and Indian e-commerce site Flipkart.

Softbank intends to invest as much as $25 billion in the kingdom in the next few years, Bloomberg reported in November. Much of that money will go towards a new tech-focused city called NEOM announced by Prince Mohammed during an investment summit last fall, according to Bloomberg.

Fresh from visits to Washington and Boston, Prince Mohammed is now in New York City, where he will attend a CEO Summit on Tuesday. The day’s agenda includes a panel on Saudi Arabia’s so-called “giga-projects” like NEOM.

The 32-year-old crown prince is spearheading Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation, which aims to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy.