The assets of a capital management company owned by a state or government with the aim of acquiring investments, primarily abroad (fund fully owned by a country and which manages money drawn chiefly from taxes, reserves, and natural-resource payments). In addition to the return on capital employed, the investment policy of many SWFs is also geared to non-financial objectives, which are often even subordinated to purely economic considerations. – Because the funds do not usually obtain their capital from business activities on the market, but are primarily endowed with tax revenues, they are able to pursue an investment policy that does not primarily have to take returns into account. Since around 2005, SWFs have increasingly come under the scrutiny of host governments and regulators. – On the other hand, it was noted with satisfaction that, in the wake of the subprime crisis, Asian SWFs injected capital into loss-making institutions such as Citigroup – the world’s largest bank by market capitalization in 2007 – Washington Mutual – the largest building society in the USA – and Union Bank of Switzerland – UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank. In the case of UBS, the state-owned Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) injected CHF 11 billion (!!). The globally active British Barclays Group, which also got into trouble in the course of the subprime crisis that followed, was provided with new capital by Arab sovereign wealth funds; at the end of 2008, Arab shareholders held thirty-two percent of the bank. – In the fall of 2008, sovereign wealth funds worldwide managed about twice the assets of hedge funds, with $3,000 billion in assets. Yet fund management is often in the hands of internationally active investment firms. On the other hand, some SWFs suffered book losses of up to a quarter of their assets as a result of the financial crisis, mainly on their exposure to bank stocks. – Debt of private companies assumed by the state in the course of a bailout, such as the one set up in the U.S. in the fall of 2008 in the wake of the subprime crisis. The fund bought non-performing securities from the institutions for USD 700 billion as part of a “troubled asset relief program” approved by Parliament.- See AIG deal, shareholder, shareholder control, cannibalization, bad bank, investment company, bail-out, burn-out turnaround, global player, financial market stabilization agency, go-go fund, hedge fund, locusts, leveraged buy-out, moral hazard, private equity funds, rescue package, venture capital, stability fund, European, trade sale, window on technology. – Cf. 2007 Annual Report of the Deutsche Bundesbank, pp. 77 ff. (overview of individual sovereign wealth funds; assessment), ECB Monthly Bulletin of January 2009, pp. 79 ff. (foreign assets of public emerging markets and their investment policy; detailed presentation; overviews).
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University Professor Dr. Gerhard Merk, Dipl.rer.pol., Dipl.rer.oec.
Professor Dr. Eckehard Krah, Dipl.rer.pol.
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