Last week Monitor Group and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei released their quarterly report about Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF). SWFs are funds that are owned directly by governments, invest in a set of diverse financial assets, and have no pension obligations. These funds include the Kuwait investment Authority, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Qatar Investment Authority, among others. The report published by Monitor and FEEM gives us a good insight on the secretive SWF, shedding some light on the trends that the fund followed, sizes of investments, and selected deals.

The latest report, which wraps up 2009, informed us that most of the public investments made by SWF were made during the last two quarters of 2009 (85% of what the funds had invested in 2009). It showed us that Qatar was the biggest spender of the year, which had invested more than $32 billion in 14 publicly-reported transactions, including Porsche and Volkswagen. The Asia Pacific region was the most popular investment destination, followed by Europe, MENA, and North America.

The reports give us a good insight on the trends of SWF, and can be especially helpful for money managers targeting money from SWF.

The report can be downloaded from: http://www.feem.it/userfiles/attach/20105171327204Monitor-FEEM_SWF_AnnualReport2009.pdf

Tags: Kuwait, Qatar, Sovereign Wealth Funds

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