The Diplomat
Sovereign wealth funds are increasing their commitment to Spain and between October 2020 and December 2021 invested more than 2.8 billion euros in 12 Spanish companies.
This is revealed in the latest ‘Sovereign Wealth Funds 2021 Report’, presented yesterday and prepared by the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University together with ICEX-Invest in Spain.
The presentation of the report, which took place at ICEX headquarters, was attended by the State Secretary for Trade, Xiana Méndez and Manuel Muñiz, Dean of the School of Global and Public Affairs at IE University.
The study points out that this is a record volume of investment, only surpassed by 2011 and 2009 in the historical series, when the Emirati Mubadala took control of Cepsa. Moreover, it doubles the figures of the previous report with the same number of operations.
This boost has come from GIC, one of Singapore’s two sovereign wealth funds, and one notable country, Abu Dhabi.
“Foreign investment showed a good performance and, according to FDI Markets, Spain has been the third destination globally for foreign greenfield projects in 2021, standing out in innovative and high-tech activities,” said Xiana Méndez.
Globally, the 98 sovereign wealth funds active in 2021 increased their operations by 171% last year to 450 transactions, while they surpassed $10.4 trillion (€9.5 trillion) in assets under management, up 11% on the previous year.
That $10.4 trillion would be equivalent in aggregate to the world’s third largest economy, according to Javier Capapé, director of sovereign wealth research at the IE Center for the Governance of Change. Since 2016, assets under management have increased by 43%.
The most active investors last year were the two Singapore funds, Temasek and GIC. The Emirati Mubadala, with 80 transactions in the period analysed (2021 and the last quarter of 2020), also occupies one of the top positions in the ranking, as well as the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the National Infrastructure Investment Fund.
