Azerbaijan’s sovereign wealth fund plans to invest up to $1.8bn in renminbi this year, in what would be one of the largest investments in the Chinese currency to be made public – and a further indication of its rapid move towards reserve currency status.
Shahmar Movsumov, chief executive of the $37bn State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (Sofaz), told the Financial Times that the fund was applying for permission from Chinese regulators to access renminbi assets and hoped to start investing in the currency by the end of the year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Azerbaijan’s state oil fund SOFAZ has gained about $1.853 billion from 2007 to June 1, 2014 by implementing the development project of the giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field in the Caspian Sea. SOFAZ earned some $256 million as part of the Shah Deniz project from January 1 to June 1, SOFAZ told Trend Agency.
The Shah Deniz field, one of the world’s largest gas-condensate fields, was discovered in 1999. Its reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Overall, the field has proved to be a secure and reliable supplier of gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and Europe………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Yu Bin, a former managing director at China’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to start a fund focused on Greater China equities, said three people with knowledge with the matter.
Yu resigned from Beijing-based China Investment Corp., also known as CIC, earlier this year for personal reasons, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. He will remain based in China and his long-biased fund will primarily bet on stocks whose prices are expected to rise, they said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Malaysia Airlines has enough cash to remain operating for about 12 months, the country’s sovereign wealth fund said on Tuesday, amid signs that Malaysian passenger traffic has started to stabilise after the initially disastrous impact of missing flight MH370. Azman Mokhtar, managing director of Khazanah, Malaysia Airlines’ biggest shareholder, said the government would unveil a rescue plan for the embattled national carrier in six to 12 months.
Khazanah owns 69.4 per cent of the airline, which was already struggling amid competition from low-cost carriers even before the disappearance of the Boeing 777 airliner three months ago on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia’s state investment arm, said Tuesday it is studying all options to restructure and turn around ailing national flag carrier Malaysia Airlines.
The airline’s efforts to recover from three years of losses have been hampered by the disappearance of Flight 370. In the first quarter of the year, Malaysian Airline System Bhd., the company that owns the Malaysia Airlines brand, reported a wider loss from a year earlier as plunging ticket sales in the aftermath of the loss of one of its Boeing 777s worsened an already weak period………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Government-linked companies (GLCs) have strengthened their financial capacities and are on track to push themselves to be on par with local competitors or even become regional champions, even as their transformation programme comes to an end next year.
Khazanah Nasional Bhd managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said with the exception of one or two problem cases, the majority of the 60 companies have done well under the GLC Transformation Programme rolled out a decade ago. “The bulk are doing well. There is a lot of wind in our sails,” Azman said after releasing the Khazanah Report 2013………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Khazanah Nasional Bhd registered a higher pre-tax profit of RM3.1 billion for the financial year ended December 31, 2013 from RM2.1 billion recorded in the 2012 financial year. In a statement, Khazanah Nasional said total revenue for the 2013 financial year amounted to RM7.6 billion which comprised dividend income of RM6.6 billion.
The government’s strategic investment fund today released the “Khazanah Report 2013″ and “GLC Transformation Programme Progress Review 2014″ at the Invest Malaysia 2014 conference………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Khazanah Nasional Bhd, which expects its 20 largest government-linked companies’ holdings to hit a record high of RM27.1 billion in net profit this year, is still looking for a strategic partner for its loss-making manufacturer of semiconductor wafers, SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
Talk of selling either a stake or the entire company has been around since 2008. According to Khazanah managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar (pix), even though SilTerra has been mildly profitable, it still needs a strategic partner in the longer term. “It could be business-to-business partnership without equity, or with equity ownership, we’re looking at all options,” he said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds’ holdings of Indian equity have increased by Rs 23,758 crore since the beginning of the calendar year, in anticipation of improving economic fundamentals and a stable government at the Centre. The total assets with these two segments rose from Rs 2.18 lakh crore in December 2013 to Rs 2.42 lakh crore in the latest available data from the stock market regulator.
Both sovereign wealth funds and pension funds are seen to be relatively stable long-term investors. An increased proportion of such funds are perceived to bring greater stability to markets because they do not generally move in and out for short-term gain………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Government Pension Fund of Norway, the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, has increased its position in shares of Israeli companies, adding five new companies to a portfolio of 62 stocks valued at a billion dollars (NIS 3.5 billion) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Israel’s Globes business daily reported on Tuesday.
In 2013, the value of its investment in companies traded on the TASE rose by 43 percent in nominal terms, from NIS 2.4 billion to nearly NIS 3.5 billion, Globes said. “Even discounting the boom on the stock exchange, the rise is impressive: the fund’s proportionate holding in shares on the Tel Aviv 100 list grew by 21% last year, exceeding 0.5% of the total of shares listed,” the newspaper said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A proposal to set up a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund attracted debate at a meeting of the kingdom’s influential Shura council advisory body but failed to yield a result, state media reported on Tuesday. A report by the council’s financial committee has said the National Reserve Fund, which would invest part of the kingdom’s vast hydrocarbon wealth, would build on its financial stability.
Details of its investment strategy have yet to be disclosed publicly, but if the proposed fund is run like the sovereign wealth funds of other wealthy Gulf states such as Qatar and Abu Dhabi, it could mean a change in the way Saudi money flows through global markets………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Saudi Arabia is planning to launch a second sovereign wealth fund to invest its budget surplus, according to Arabian news sources. The country’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), currently invests money generated by oil exports in an existing sovereign wealth fund, SAMA Foreign Holdings.
The strength of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has helped grow this portfolio to be the third largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, behind those of Norway and Abu Dhabi………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Mubadala Development Company has taken a greater slice of National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed) after converting bonds into equity. The Abu Dhabi state investment fund has turned AED 134mn ($36.5mn) worth of bonds into close to 80 million new shares.
Tabreed’s outstanding number of shares now stands at 738.5 million following the exercise, according to a statement to the Dubai Financial Market. The conversion price is AED 1.6856 per share, which was the agreed upon price at the time of the issuance of the bonds. Mubadala is currently the biggest shareholder in Tabreed with a 14.3% stake………………………………………..Full Article: Source