Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has now decreased their stake in Nintendo Co. Ltd. in Japan.
As reported by CNBC, a new Japanese regulatory filing revealed that the PIF now owns a 7.54 % stake in Nintendo, down from the 8.58 % stake it previously had. It completely flies in the face of yesterday’s rumor that the PIF wanted to buy more into Nintendo, but there may be more to this.
The rumor that everyone reported on yesterday, including us, came from a Japanese outlet called Kyodo News. Kyodo claimed to have their own sources talking about this, and then they got an official response to Saudi Arabia’s representative at Tokyo Game Show 20024, Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al-Saud.
Video game industry consultant Dr. Serkan Toto works in Japan and has occasionally shared news and his commentary on current events going on over there. He chimed in on how this news has played out on Twitter, saying:
“Japanese news agency Kyodo updated its story that got investors worldwide excited and let Japanese gaming stock fly yesterday.
Now they quote the Prince just as saying “It’s always a possibility” they might invest further.
What in this universe is NOT “always a possibility”?”
He then shared the latest news on the PIF lowering their stake with this statement:
“Now it turns out the Saudis have actually REDUCED their stake in Nintendo (from 8.58% to 7.54%):
Great work, Kyodo.”
Someone replying to Dr. Toto then made explicit what he was suggesting; that this looked like market manipulation. And that may be a serious accusation to spread around, but if the actions that they demonstrated looked suspicious enough, than it’s absolutely paramount to raise the red flags on this.
Again, talking about this doesn’t mean you have to like or dislike the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or Nintendo. But if that rumor was intended to raise Nintendo’s stock value, even if only temporarily, than it probably did make someone money, even for a brief instant.
And that is tantamount to playing not just with Saudi Arabia’s or Nintendo’s cash flows, but with the livelihoods of hundreds of people whose fortunes are tied to those companies. If someone did do market manipulation by this, they also took advantage of the growing speculation on when Nintendo will reveal and launch their next game console.
Don’t be surprised if an investigation comes up for this anytime soon, but since that divestment is somewhat minor, Saudi Arabia probably still holds the same interest in Nintendo’s business as they did yesterday. We’re all just waiting for that Switch 2 reveal, and maybe that’s coming up as soon as next week.
