{"id":806848,"date":"2020-04-27T15:56:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T21:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=990697"},"modified":"2020-04-27T15:56:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T21:56:44","slug":"saudi-arabia-investment-fund-acquires-500-million-stake-in-live-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/saudi-arabia-investment-fund-acquires-500-million-stake-in-live-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia Investment Fund Acquires $500 Million Stake in Live Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/livenation.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/saudi-arabia\/\" id=\"auto-tag_saudi-arabia\" data-tag=\"saudi-arabia\">Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, has purchased a stake in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/live-nation\/\" id=\"auto-tag_live-nation\" data-tag=\"live-nation\">Live Nation<\/a> worth about $500 million, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2020\/music\/news\/live-nation-saudi-arabia-investment-fund-1234590638\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>Variety <\/i><\/a>reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Public Investment Fund acquired a 5.7 percent stake totaling around 12.3 million shares in the music industry giant, according to new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The PIF is now the third-largest shareholder of Live Nation, with Liberty Media being the biggest with a 33 percent stake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">News of the investment reportedly bumped up Live Nation shares to $42.01 from its previous close of $38.24. Live Nation\u2019s stock price has been hit particularly hard this year because of COVID-19\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/live-nation-halts-touring-coronavirus-966385\/\">devastating impact on the live music industry<\/a> (back in February, before the virus was really spreading in the Untied States, Live Nation shares were valued at over $75).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">To <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/live-nation-rapino-salary-coronavirus-982685\/\">ease the company\u2019s new financial burden<\/a>, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said earlier this month that he would forgo the rest of his $3 million salary (though he may still receive additional compensation through bonuses), while other top executives would also take pay cuts of up to 50 percent. Other cost-cutting measures include hiring freezes, the reduction of the use of contractors, rent renegotiations and furloughs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The PIF\u2019s investment in Live Nation comes as many American companies, especially entertainment and media firms, remain reluctant to accept money from Saudi Arabia following the 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/cia-conclusion-khashoggi-death-757858\/\">murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>. In 2018, the PIF acquired a minority stake in <i>Rolling Stone<\/i>\u2018s parent company, Penske Media Corp.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-contextual-player\">\n<h3> Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/saudi-arabia-investment-fund-acquires-live-nation-990697\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, has purchased a stake in Live Nation worth about $500 million, Variety reports. The Public Investment Fund acquired a 5.7 percent stake totaling around 12.3 million shares in the music industry giant, according to new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The PIF is now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-806848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-12 21:11:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}