Israel will soon establish a sovereign wealth fund with revenues from oil and natural gas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. About half of state revenues from oil and natural gas will be put into the fund, which will be used as a “security cushion,” to pay costs during extraordinary events, like wars, natural disasters and economic crises, the prime minister’s office said. Some profits from the fund’s investments will also be used for education.
The fund will invest the money abroad and will be managed according to legislated rules, which have not yet been set. The Bank of Israel and Ministry of Finance will be involved in supervising the fund………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Israel on Sunday took the first steps to setting up a sovereign wealth fund similar to Norway’s to safeguard billions of dollars in windfall natural gas revenue for national projects and emergencies.
The recent discovery of some of the world’s largest off-shore gas fields has given Israel decades of energy independence and paved the way for it to become a natural gas exporter. But it wants to avoid so-called “Dutch disease” whereby a sudden explosion in national wealth overheats the currency and undermines export industries………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Two US hedge funds are poised to wrest control of Travelodge from Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund as the UK budget hotel chain struggles beneath a £530m debt pile.
Avenue Capital and GoldenTree Asset Management, both based in New York, have agreed to underwrite a £60m loan to the hotel operator, which has battled to keep up with interest repayments of almost £100m a year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The newly established Russian sovereign wealth fund has appointed two leading North American financial professionals to its board to help provide investment and corporate governance advice.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has appointed Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Laurent Vigier, Director of European and International Affairs at the Caisse des Dépôts Group to its Supervisory Board, it announced this week………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Norway’s $550 billion sovereign wealth fund, which wants a bigger voice at the U.S. companies in which it invests, counts a recent corporate governance change at oil and gas explorer Pioneer Natural Resources Co as an early success.
Norges Bank Investment Management, whose U.S. holdings account for about a fifth of its funds and which last reported owning 0.5 percent of Pioneer, welcomed the Dallas company’s decision to have majority voting for directors and ultimately hold annual elections for board members………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Nama properties will be packaged into regional or sectoral portfolios to entice investors to take a punt on an Irish or British property market recovery.
Nama is hoping that the sub-funds will attract institutional investors such as pensions funds or sovereign wealth funds to buy the properties on a phased basis………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The recently appointed head of Kazakhstan’s $84 billion sovereign wealth fund says the fund has been hamstrung by a lack of strategic vision, excessive bureaucracy, and overstaffing.
Omirzaq Shukeev’s comments — made in an interview published on February 16 by the Russian daily “Kommersant” — are being seen as sharp criticism of the Samruk-Qazyna fund’s previous management, which was led by Timur Kulibaev, the wealthy son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbaev………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Sunshine Oilsands Ltd. begins offering shares in an initial public offering to raise as much as HK$4.69 billion ($605 million), the holder of Canadian oil- sand leases said. Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, are among cornerstone investors in the IPO, Calgary, Alberta-based Sunshine said.
The shares will be offered for between HK$4.86 and HK$5.08 apiece, and are expected to begin trading on Hong Kong’s stock exchange March 1, it said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund IPIC (International Petroleum Investment Co) has become the largest shareholder in Italian bank UniCredit. Aabar Luxembourg is reported by Dow Jones newswire to now own 6.5 per cent of the bank.
Other shareholders include Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, an Italian non-profit organisation, with 3.86 per cent and US-based Capital Research and Management with 2.7 per cent………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Overseas investors, including sovereign funds from Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, have assured the government they would buy up the proposed 5% stake sale in Oil & Natural Gas Corp, setting the pace for accelerated divestment in cash-rich companies by a funds-starved government.
Representatives of various funds from Singapore, the Middle East and London, who met finance ministry officials last week, have informally ‘underwritten’ the stake sale in the state-run company that could help the government raise about Rs 12,000 crore at current market valuations, three people familiar with the discussions between the government and investors said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

There has been growing debate as to whether Australia should make greater use of Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, to manage fluctuations in the federal budget balance due to commodity price cycles and the business cycle.
It has also been argued that Australia needs a SWF to better manage the macroeconomic consequences of the “terms of trade” boom, such as the rising Australian dollar and the so-called “Dutch disease”. A SWF has also been advocated as a mechanism for sharing the revenue from the global commodity price boom with future generations………………………………………..Full Article: Source