Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund will pull several billion euros from global asset managers over the next five years, as the Irish government tries to use the fund’s assets to bolster its domestic economy.
Around €3bn of the sovereign fund’s €7.9bn of investible asset is in global equities, bonds, commodities, infrastructure and absolute return funds run by international asset managers. It will divest from these holdings by 2020 as part of its new mandate to invest in projects and companies with the potential to create jobs in Ireland and boost the country’s economy………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Qatar Investment Authority has offloaded shares in Shell and BG worth nearly £1bn in recent weeks, raising fresh questions over whether the oil­giants’ proposed mega-merger has the support of major shareholders.
The sovereign wealth fund, led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed AlThani, a member of the Qatari royal family, has sold around 43m shares in BG Group, worth roughly £550m, and a further 24m shares in Shell, with a value of approximately £421m. The sell-off, over a period of less than three weeks between the end of October and the first week of November, will be a blow to Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Australia’s sovereign wealth fund is looking for a buyer for its stake in Southern Water, the water and sewerage company recently fined for discharging raw sewage into the sea. Future Fund, set up by the Australian government to take on civil servants’ pensions, has mandated Macquarie Capital to review whether it should keep or sell its 23.4% stake.
Macquarie Capital is an advisory arm of the Sydney-based bank. Southern provides water and wastewater services for 4.6 million people in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. It was fined £160,000 two months ago for dumping raw sewage into the sea near Worthing in 2012………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The sprawling web of investments by a Malaysian government fund at the center of a corruption probe now includes two former fundraisers for President Barack Obama and a hip-hop superstar. The fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., paid private-equity group DuSable Capital Management LLC $69 million to buy its stake in a joint venture to develop solar power plants in the Southeast Asian country, the two sides said Wednesday.
The parties had signed an agreement in April 2014 giving DuSable a 49% stake, but 1MDB agreed to buy out the firm six months later, before construction had begun on any project, they said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Bank Negara Malaysia is still “validating” 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) explanation on its inability to repatriate US$1.83 billion in funds ordered by the central bank. Stressing that “the matter is not straight forward” and related to 1MDB’s rationalisation plan, Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz did not commit a timeline for the completion of its evaluation process.
“It’s premature to say anything more, we’ll make assessments once we’ve received all information that we’ve requested,” she said during a press conference on Friday announcing the country’s gross domestic product growth figures for the third quarter of the year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

At the Forum Perdana in PWTC (on Saturday), Arul Kanda, the president and group executive officer of 1MDB, provided a detailed briefing on 1MDB and replied without reservation to various pointed and pertinent questions raised by the audience. This briefing was open to all Malaysians and covered by various media organisations, including alternative media.
1MDB regrets to note that one wrong headline relating to financial costs by The Malaysian Insider (which was subsequently corrected), appears to have been widely and wrongly circulated, including in an Instagram posting that appears to have originated from one Dato’ Sri Nazir Razak. Further, 1MDB notes that a number of online news portals and certain bloggers have in the course of today raised queries relating to the Brazen Sky fund unit redemptions, which was another topic covered at the briefing………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Sovereign wealth fund (SWF) assets will grow more slowly or even decline as governments are forced to tap funds to finance budget deficits resulting from persistently low oil prices, credit ratings agency Moody’s said on Thursday. The $4.5 trillion SWF industry has grown rapidly over the last decade but with 73 percent of SWF assets funded from oil and gas revenues, countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Norway have already begun tapping into their reserves.
These drawdowns have been prompted by a fall of over 50 percent in global oil prices, with Brent crude futures plunging from $115 a barrel in June 2014 to around $45 a barrel today. With the oil supply glut persisting, the situation is not expected to change soon………………………………………..Full Article: Source

As a November 12th report from Moody’s Investors Service highlights, both the number and the AUM of global sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have grown rapidly over the last decade and change. Moreover, SWFs are becoming a crucial part of the international financial system, and were an important stabilizing force in the financial crisis a few years ago.
Finally, as Elena H. Duggar and the rest of the Moody’s team note: “SWFs facilitate the intergenerational transfer of proceeds from nonrenewable resources, allow for greater portfolio diversification than traditional central bank reserves, and contribute to exchange rate stability by managing excess inflows. SWFs also increasingly fund investments in infrastructure.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source