Bahrain SWF eyes foreign stakes

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The value of investments held by the sovereign wealth fund had fallen by about 10 to 15 percent from around $ 10 billion as a result of the global economic downturn, Mumtalakat CEO Talal Al-Zain told Reuters yesterday.

In an interview in Bahrain’s capital Manama, Al-Zain said Mumtalakat’s strategy to balance local and international investments does not necessarily mean the fund would sell down local stakes and shift proceeds to its international portfolio.

“Our strategy is to balance our portfolio to be 50 percent local, 50 percent global … I’m not saying I want to reduce my exposure to the local market, so I have a lot to invest to bring me to that 50 percent global,” he said, declining to give exact figures. Ninety-eight percent of Mumtalakat’s holdings are currently in local companies, including state carrier Gulf Air and Bahrain Telecommunications Co. Sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf Arab region, the world’s largest oil-exporting region, slowed down their investments in Western companies when oil prices started to tumble last year.

Neighboring Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, said this month it does not plan to make any investments in the next six months.

But Gulf emirate Abu Dhabi last week bought a 9.1 percent stake in German carmaker Daimler through its listed investment vehicle Aabar, suggesting the fall in valuations could start to bottom out.

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