Blowing hot and cold (TT Nov08 p42-44)

Even if the desperate remedies taken by governments to get banks lending again prove effective, sovereign wealth funds are already major players in the financial markets and their importance is set to increase over the coming years.

Sovereign wealth funds – the name given to government-owned capital funds – can trace their origin back some 50 years, but their regular appearance in the media’s business pages is a fairly recent phenomenon. Alongside them stand government-owned investment companies, such as Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company, which have some different characteristics from sovereign wealth funds and sovereign pension funds.