The Public Investment Fund (PIF) once again landed at the top of the Global SWF report, landing a perfect 100% score in the 2025 governance, sustainability, and resilience (GSR) rankings, according to the group’s latest report (pdf). The fund’s score makes it one of just nine state-owned investors (SOIs) worldwide to hit triple digits. PIF’s perfect 100 score marks a 4-point gain from last year and a massive 28-point leap from 2020, helped by PIF’s new annual ESG updates.

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The GSR scorecard assesses 25 equally weighted yes-or-no criteria — 10 for governance, 10 for sustainability, and 5 for resilience—then converts that into a percentage.

On the money front: PIF ranked sixth globally in capital deployed over the past 5.5 years (USD 4.9 bn) but it came in 36th for 10-year annualized returns (6.29% from FY 2015-FY 2024).

Local investments made up 40% of total deployments in 1H 2025, aligning with the PIF’s plan to cut international exposure to 18–20% (down from 30%).

Saudi Arabia’s four SOIs now manage over USD 1.5 tn in assets, placing the Kingdom at ninth globally by assets under management (AUM). Collectively, these SOIs rank 46th in GSR with a 49% score, a 78% credit rating, and 52% on the Corruption Perceptions Index. PIF leads the local pack with USD 925 bn in AUM (6th worldwide), followed by the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) with USD 374 bn (18th globally).

Regionally, GCC sovereign wealth funds managed USD 5.9 tn in assets in 1H 2025 — accounting for 36% of global sovereign wealth fund (SWF) assets. They also deployed 36% of all sovereign investments during the same period, up from 32% in 2H 2024. Over the past five years, SOIs in the Middle East have steadily improved GSR scores, rising from 32% in 2020 to 48% in 2025.

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