Senate will continue to inquire on potential Saudi PIF-Tour deal

The negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund may be ongoing, but that won’t slow the U.S. Senate’s inquiry into the potential deal.

In July, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held two hearings on the potential deal that would combine the Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf, which is owned by the PIF, under a new, for-profit entity called PGA Tour Enterprises. On Monday, senators sent a letter to PIF’s governor informing him “the Subcommittee intends to continue to pursue its inquiry [into the potential deal].”

The PIF filed a lawsuit in Saudi Arabia, pushing back on subpoenas that were sent by the subcommittee to multiple firms working with the fund, including Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, M. Klein and Company and Teneo.

“The PIF consultants likely possess information relevant to this inquiry, and the subcommittee has issued a subpoena to each of the PIF consultants to obtain that information and relevant records,” read the letter to PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan from subcommittee chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Rob Johnson, W-Wisc.

The subcommittee requested representatives from each of the firms to appear for a hearing in December and provide “documents and information related to their work with the PIF.”

An attorney representing PIF sent a letter to Blumenthal earlier this month arguing that providing the documents the subcommittee requested would “violate lawful orders issued by the courts of Saudi Arabia.”

In June, the Tour signed a framework agreement with the PIF and European tour and the sides extended a Dec. 31 deadline to reach a definitive agreement. According to multiple sources, the Tour continues to negotiate with the PIF – including a face-to-face meeting between Al-Rumayyan and Tour commissioner Jay Monahan earlier this month, reported multiple outlets – as well as a private equity group led by Fenway Sports.