It might be a good idea to copy the Chinese example of buying up everything that’s not stapled down abroad, says Russian presidential hopeful president elect Dmitri Medvedev.  The FT is reporting that Medvedev is pushing for this foreign acquisition spending spree because “This will allow us to re-tool Russian enterprises with technology, boost their [...]

Is the rise of new sovereign wealth funds, and their penchant for acquiring politically strategic businesses abroad, fueling a new era of protectionism? This appears to be the case in Germany, which is working on redrafting a new law would allow Berlin to intervene in bids over foreign companies holding key stakes in national businesses. [...]

Garnering yet further characteristics of private equity firms, the Financial Times reports on several sovereign wealth funds doling out considerable compensation to attract top-level private sector executive talent.  Will these move help take the politics out of decision making? Sovereign wealth funds raise pay levels to attract top executives By Martin Arnold in London, Henny [...]

Gwyn Morgan, the retired founding CEO of EnCana, has a great article in the Globe and Mail today about the shifting balance of power in the global economy posed by both petro dollars and trade flows.  The rise of sovereign wealth funds is provoking calls for greater transparency.

Aslund makes a pretty interesting argument here: Focus on Gazprom, Not Sovereign Wealth Funds by Anders Aslund, Peterson Institute Op-ed in the Moscow Times November 8, 2007 Until recently, the world of finance appeared to move toward transparent, publicly traded private corporations, but recently an opposite trend is apparent. Nontransparent forms of investment, such as [...]

Here’s good one in the Washington Post – they’ve caught on to this whole “sovereign wealth thing” caused by high oil prices.  It’s nice, well reported piece, although I don’t think that Germany was “alarmed” over Russia’s pipeline acquisitions – they helped them complete the transactions. Oil and Trade Gains Make Major Investors Of Developing [...]

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt told the FT this weekend that China and India would rescue the corporation from the credit crunch, throwing his weight behind the theory of “decoupling.” Immelt also said that the sovereign wealth funds were also having a big impact on the global economy, which in some ways is helping GE’s returns: [...]

 It seems that we have still a long ways to go to settle on a definition, but Stephen Jen from Morgan Stanley has a good attempt located here: Summary and conclusions There is no universally agreed definition of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs).  In this note, we try to better define what SWFs are.  Characteristics of [...]

Today from MarketWatch: Sovereign-wealth funds too big to ignore Government-run funds causing heartburn in financial establishment By William L. Watts, MarketWatch Last Update: 1:52 PM ET Oct 20, 2007 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The government-run investment pools known as sovereign wealth funds aren’t new, but they’re growing fast, causing heartburn for politicians and policymakers and leading [...]

 From the Wall Street Journal’s Real Time Economics: Sovereign Wealth Funds: The Truman Index Sovereign wealth funds are one of the biggest new concerns on the international financial horizon, more than $2 trillion of money in government hands from Middle East oil producers to Asia mega-savers. Amid calls for a new “code of conduct” for [...]