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This perspective documents the change in attitudes of Western governments to foreign direct investment from sovereign wealth funds. The authors propose an analysis of sovereign wealth fund investments and their impact on target firms in order for recipient governments to formulate the proper regulatory response to sovereign direct investment.

This Perspective documents the change in attitudes of Western governments to foreign direct investment from sovereign wealth funds. The authors propose an analysis of sovereign wealth fund investments and their impact on target firms in order for recipient governments to formulate the proper regulatory response to sovereign direct investment.

SWFs are characterized by their large size and limited level of transparency, which might worsen the potentially politicized nature of their investments. During the latest financial crisis, SWFs have started getting interested in financial companies and have become key players, also entering the capital of large US and European banks. The literature and the industry have analyzed the potential pros and cons of the participation of SWFs into the financial industry, but no conclusive answer has been provided, especially with reference to the effects of the presence of SWFs on the performance of their targets. This paper aims at evaluating this latter aspect, by measuring the performance of SWF banks, through the use of four performance ratios. When comparing the performance of SWF banks with a sample of non-SWF banks in three time periods (2004-2006, 2007-2008 and 2009-2014) we find no statistical differences in performances, but during the acute crisis period, when SWF activity in the banking industry was at its top. During this phase, SWF banks performed worse than their peer. Nevertheless, regression results confirm that the presence of a SWF cannot be per se considered the determinant of this performance.

In the current highly volatile international financial system, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have emerged as significant global financial players. The emergence of these funds has drawn considerable attention from policy-makers, market players and scholars. There are two main reasons for this. First, SWF have been acknowledged to be the largest concentration of capital that the world has ever known. In 2008, SWFs exceeded the amount of US$ 5 trillion (UNCTAD, 2008). It is estimated that by 2015 they will reach the amount of US$ 12 trillion (Redicker and Crebo-Redicker, 2007). Secondly, the management of these funds has raised concern about the lack of transparency in the administration and investment strategies of these colossal funds. Strong sentiments of protectionism have been particularly expressed by some European countries. Much of these strong sentiments can be attributed to the unprecedented phenomenon that results from the accrual of large current accounts surpluses of some emerging and developing nations, who are keen to invest in the developed world. This remarkable shift of capital flows suggests the establishment of a new economic order. This chapter considers the emergence of SWFs as global financial players, the new regulations placed to lessen concerns around this phenomenon, the European approach towards SWFs and their impact on the global economy.

Máster Universitario en Finanzas ; Todo comienza, según algunos artículos, con la "paradoja de la abundancia". Y es que la crisis económica reciente fue consecuencia de una gran acumulación de desequilibrios económicos derivados de un enorme periodo de expansión de las economías. El fuerte crecimiento de las economías emergentes unido a una gran burbuja de crédito bancario hizo crecer el PIB de los mercados a costa de un gran endeudamiento y una gran sobrevaloración de algunos activos como los inmobiliarios. A grandes rasgos, se puede decir que un crecimiento exagerado de un sector puede terminar afectando al conjunto de la economía. Pues bien, en este trabajo se tratará de analizar uno de los vehículos de inversión que, aunque existentes desde hace varias décadas, no han disfrutado de gran protagonismo en el mercado durante toda su historia y en los últimos años, bajo los efectos de la crisis financiera, se consideran un emblema del cambio económico que estamos viviendo, los fondos de renta soberana o SWFs. La estructura de cada SWFs es diferente a los demás vehículos de inversión e incluso de los demás fondos soberanos, en su tamaño, en el origen de sus recursos, en sus objetivos de inversión e incluso en su regulación. Por eso, a modo de introducción definiremos a qué llamamos fondo soberano y qué tipos de fondos soberanos existen en la actualidad, dado que son instrumentos muy particulares. Seguidamente se situarán los fondos soberanos como vehículo de inversión, para tener una idea de la posición que ocupan dentro de los mercados. Para llegar a ese punto, los SWFs han recorrido un largo proceso de adaptación al mercado, evolucionando según éste lo requería, y ese recorrido es de gran importancia para entender el concepto y la estrategia que siguen para conseguir sus objetivos. En el punto 3 se segmentará la historia de los SWFs en tres grandes periodos hasta llegar al incio de la crisis, donde se realizará un estudio de la estrategia sectorial y geográfica de los SWFs para cada año hasta llegar a la actualidad. La gran cantidad de activos que actualmente manejan hace de los SWFs agentes con gran protagonismo en los mercados hasta el punto de que su impacto empieza a generar preocupación entre algunos expertos, en el punto 4 se analizará el posible impacto de los SWFs desde el punto de vista puramente financiero y desde un punto de vista estratégico. Para terminar se realizará un profundo estudio del fondo soberano más grande del mundo por volumen de activos, el Government Global Pension Fund noruego. El gran nivel de transparencia de este fondo (calificado con un 10 en el Linaburg –Maduell Transparency Index realizado por el SWF Insitute), nos permitirá analizar su estrategia de inversión al detalle, así como hacer lo propio con el rendimiento de su cartera de inversión, compararla con su benchmark y finalmente proponer algunos aspectos que mejoren ese rendimiento. ; Everything starts, regarding some articles, with the "plenty paradox". The fact is that the financial crisis was a consequence of the accumulation of large economic imbalances due to a long period of financial growth. This growth, specially in emergent economies, and a great credit bubble in the banking system made the global GDP to grow based on big levels of leverage and overvaluation of asset prices. This assignment will focus on analyze one of the main investment vehicles which, although existing for decades, have not been in the market top until last few years, when the effects of the financial crisis made them to appear as an emblem of the economic change that we are developing. They are de SWFs. Each SWF are much different from the rest of the investment vehicles, even from the other SWFs, in size, origin, investment aims, even in regulation. So, as an introduction, we are going to define them in order to clarify what we call SWF and what types of SWFs are operating nowadays in the market. Then, they will be situated in the marketas an investment vehicle, to have an idea of the position of the SWFs in the actual marlet. To meet this point, SWFs have develop an evolution process adapting the environment, and this is so importanto to understand them as a concept of investing, and its investment strategy. In point 3 it will be segmented the SWFs's history on three big time periods until the beginning of the crisis, where it will be analyzed the sectorial and geographical strategy concretely for each market-depression year till today. The great volume of assets that SWFs manage put them in the top of the market to the extent that their impact is generating some type of concern between some experts. In point 4 we will analyze the impact of SWFs from the financial point of view and also from the strategical one. Finally we will realize a deep study of the most important SWF in asset volume, the Government Global Pension Fund of Norway. The great transparency level of this fund (qualified as 10 in the Linaburg –Maduell Transparency Index by the SWF Insitute) will allow us to analyze of every detail of its strategy and also with its performance. Then, we will compare the performance of its portfolio against the benchmark and we will propose some aspects to improve it.

AbstractThe recent global financial crisis has significantly affected sovereign wealth funds' (SWFs') financial performance and their investment activities. The crisis shed a new light on SWFs' objectives and priorities. SWFs need to review critically their strategic asset allocation (SAA) within a sovereign asset and liability management (ALM) framework, and their assets should be analyzed over complete economic cycles including market turbulences. The crisis raises also the question of whether some of the underlying objectives of the Santiago Principles—maintaining a stable global financial system and maximizing financial returns—are perhaps conflicting. We argue that any conflict was from a wrong interpretation of the principles, not from the principles themselves. Ultimately, stable financial markets are in each SWF's self interest, also from a narrow financial perspective. In this respect, financial stability and financial risk/return can be mutually reinforcing objectives rather than conflicting.

Although there has been vivid academic debate as to what extent Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are motivated by political reasons, it is rather clear that countries can use state-owned investment funds as a tool of their foreign policy. Even Barack Obama, during his initial presidential campaign in 2008 commented: "I am obviously concerned if these… sovereign wealth funds are motivated by more than just market consideration and that's obviously a possibility". This book looks at SWF activities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to determine the main motives for SWF presence in CEE. Are the potential financial gains the only reason behind their investments? Are SWF activities in the region dangerous for the stability and security of the CEE countries? The book is pioneering analyses of SWFs behaviour in the region, based on empirical data collected from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Transaction Database, arguably the most comprehensive and authoritative resource tracking SWF investment behaviour globally. ; Rozdział pochodzi z książki: Political Players? Sovereign Wealth Funds' Investments in Central and Eastern Europe, T. Kamiński (ed.), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź 2017. ; This chapter presents an overview of the investments made by Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), defined in this paper as the region encompassing the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. The following analysis considers all investments made by the funds as of the end of July 2014 and is based on data from the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Transaction Database, the Sovereign Wealth Center and government official information. The aim of the chapter is to make an introduction to the following parts of this paper and to allow to estimate the potential political risks stemming from SWF investments. ; This book was published in frames of project "Political significance of the Sovereign Wealth Funds' investments in the Central and Eastern Europe". The project was financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Decision no. DEC-2012/07/B/HS5/03797).

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in sustaining global economies. The subject of SWFs has increasingly garnered the concerns of policymakers, market players and scholars for two main reasons: First, these funds represent the largest concentration of capital that the world has ever known, with the Arabian Gulf SWFs becoming increasingly important global players, especially during the most recent financial crises. Second, there is the dominant role of national governments in the management of these colossal funds. This paper assesses the contrasting perspectives on SWFs and analyzes the role they can play in sustaining the global economy by engaging in foreign direct investment.