Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan

Spear’s Review

Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan is not a man who enjoys the limelight, but sport has thrust him into the harsh glare of publicity. He came to broad public attention two years ago when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which he heads, clinched a controversial deal to buy Premier League club Newcastle United, owning 80 per cent of the $407 million takeover.

The PIF is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. It saw its assets under management grow by more than 20 per cent in 2021 to reach $526.8 billion, according to its annual report. Al-Rumayyan is targeting assets under management of around $1 trillion by the end of 2025.

More recently it is golf that has put him on the front and back pages of global newspapers. Golf ’s PGA Tour has widened its antitrust clash with Saudi Arabia-backed rival LIV Golf tour, asking a US judge for permission to add the PIF as a defendant to a lawsuit it filed last year. The PGA alleges Al-Rumayyan helped LIV violate US antitrust laws by luring PGA players with millions of dollars to breach their contracts. The rival circuits sued each other in the US courts last year for alleged anti- competitive behaviour, with LIV accusing the PGA of punishing players who took part in LIV tournaments in order to starve the upstart of the best talent. Both circuits have denied wrongdoing in the dispute, which goes to full trial next year.

Before his sporting travails, Al-Rumayyan was best known as chairman of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company.

He is also a board member at Uber and Japanese investor SoftBank. He became an adviser to the Royal Court in Saudi Arabia in 2015 and a year later became an adviser to the Saudi cabinet, then a board member of the Saudi Industrial Development Fund. Al-Rumayyan was the CEO of Saudi Fransi Capital LLC between 2011 and 2015 and is a former member of the board of directors of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

He began his career at Saudi Hollandi Bank as head of international brokerage between 1999 and 2004, before joining the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) as the head of securities listings. Al-Rumayyan studied accounting at King Faisal University, graduating in 1993, and completed his general management programme at Harvard Business School in 2007.