Table 10: Public institutions budget appropriations
SARbn US$bn % of GDP
Universities 55.7 14.8 23 Saudi Arabian Airlines 28.5 76 1.2 Saline Water Conversion Corporation 15.6 4.2 0.6 General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) 15.5 44 0.6 Saudi Post Organization 3.2 0.8 0.1 Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization 29 0.8 0.1 Saudi Ports Authority 1.8 0.5 0.1 Saudi Railways Organization 1.7 0.4 0.1 Other 38.9 10.4 1.6 Total 163.7 43.7 6.8
of which, public institutions in sectors that could be privatized 124.8 33.3 5.2
Source: SAMA, Ministry of Finance, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research. Data as of 2015 budget.
Sales of PIF assets could help replenish fiscal reserves but not Fx reserves Secondary sales of domestic assets could be a faster way than Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and privatizations for the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to raise its fiscal reserves at SAMA, in our view. We look at this possibility to assess the potential for the MoF to use it as an option to support its fiscal reserves at SAMA and prevent a debt build-up in response to ongoing fiscal deficits.
If this were to take place, this could occur through holdings of the PIF rather than the pension funds who are large institutional investors in the domestic equity market, in our view. We calculate that the PIF could sell stakes worth around SAR200bn (US$53.6bn) domestically through liquidating existing minority stakes and selling down majority holdings while retaining control. If the PIF holdings are above 50%, we assume arbitrarily that the holding is strategic, and thus calculate the current value of the stake that the PIF (using the current stock price in the market) can sell down so it retains a controlling 51% ownership share. If the PIF holdings are below 50%, we arbitrarily assume that the holding is not strategic, and thus calculate the current value of the stake that the PIF holds (using the current stock price in the market) as we assume it could be fully liquidated.
The proceeds of sales domestically (without foreign participation) would increase central government deposits at SAMA, decrease other domestic liabilities of SAMA but keep Fx reserves unchanged. Because of the latter, because such large coordinated sales could weigh on the market and as the PIF is targeted to become the largest SWF by Saudi authorities, we doubt this is going to be a course policy-makers are likely to be considering in the near term.
24 GEMs Paper #26 | 30 June 2016 3S Merrill Lynch
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