Sovereign Wealth Funds – SWF

You may call it the return of State capitalism. However phrased, Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are today key actors in the global financial landscape. The rise of their investment activity has been controversial. Initially depicted as the new “barbarians at the gate”, US politics turned them into the white knights of Wall Street. But now everything changes: the crisis will provide an automatic stabilizer of the global imbalances, and henceforth SWFs will appear less fearful than in the past. In any case, with asset worth more that US$3trn, SWFs are here to stay as liquidity providers to a distressed global economic system, especially if sound agreement on transparency will be established, also from the side of recipient countries, Europe included.