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Saudi Wealth Fund Chief Joins Board of SoftBank's Arm Group

Saudi Wealth Fund Chief Joins Board of SoftBank's Arm Group

(Bloomberg) -- The head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has joined the board of U.K. chip designer Arm Holdings Plc, deepening ties between the PIF, ARM parent SoftBank Group Corp., and its near-$100 billion technology financing vehicle.

Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan, managing director of the PIF, joined the board of Arm in recent weeks, a spokesman for the chip designer told Bloomberg Tuesday.

The PIF -- which aims to become a $2 trillion investment giant -- has announced plans to invest as much as $45 billion into SoftBank’s huge tech-focused Vision Fund, and the two financiers are also embarking on a major solar energy venture.

In 2016 SoftBank paid about $32 billion for ARM. Sprint Corp. Chief Executive Officer Marcelo Claure -- who in May was promoted to chief operating officer at SoftBank -- joined the board of the chip designer in March, alongside the Japanese company’s founder, Masayoshi Son.

SoftBank is also working to further strengthen its ties with the Middle East’s major investors, recently hiring former Deutsche Bank AG executive Faisal Rahman to head the Vision Fund’s operations in the region, as well as North Africa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Giles Turner in London at gturner35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, Kim Robert McLaughlin

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