We examine 802 investments by 33 Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in publicly traded companies between May 1985 and November 2009, and find that SWFs tend to invest in large, levered, profitable growth firms, usually headquartered in an OECD country. Announcements of SWF investments yield...

Commodity (primarily oil) funds are facing today the most severe adverse shock of their history. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the crisis in oil-rich nations, already hit by low oil prices and declining hydrocarbon revenues. Governments of all stripes are tapping sovereign wealth and...

This paper addresses the difficulties of accurately defining a SWF, discusses the evolution of the original SWFs from stabilization to wealth funds, and examines how SWFs are organized and funded. We also detail the key measures developed to assess the operational and informational transparency...

Using a sample of 1,018 Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) equity investments in publicly traded firms and a control sample of 5,975 transactions by private-sector financial institutions over 1980-2012, we find that announcement-period abnormal returns of SWF investments are positive, but lower than...

Extant research finds that announcement-period abnormal returns of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) equity investments in publicly traded firms are positive but lower than those of comparable private investments. We investigate the determinants of this “SWF discount” and mitigating mechanisms. We...

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are key actors in the global financial landscape of the twenty-first century. According to the OECD, at the peak of the global financial crisis, government driven international M&A reached US$120 billion, or 20% of the total international M&A. This dropped...