The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the state-run organisation which manages the country's billions of dollars of financial surpluses, announced recently that it was looking to invest in Indian healthcare and education projects. Some months earlier, the KIA’s senior managers announced that they intended to “double or treble” their exposure to Japan.
These statements demonstrate the way the organisation’s strategy has evolved from the ultra-conservative approach that been the key characteristic of the world’s oldest sovereign wealth fund. Founded in 1953, the KIA, which is estimated to have at least $200bn of funds under its management, making it one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, traditionally invested in blue-chip Western companies and US treasuries – in the early part of this century, only 2.5% was invested in real estate and 1.5% in private equity funds.
