IFSWF Admits New Members Among its Global Sovereign Wealth Fund Network

The London-based International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds approved one new full member and three new associate members to its global network.



The International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF), a global network of sovereign wealth funds from more than 40 countries, has admitted the Indonesia Investment Authority (INA) as a full member.

The government of Indonesia injected initial capital of $5 billion into the investment authority in 2021. As part of the investment strategy and mandate, the fund looks for credible investors, global and local, to help quickly grow its assets under management to $20 billion.

The INA had been an associate member of the IFSWF since May 2021 and in becoming a full member accepts to uphold the Generally Accepted Principles and Practices for governance, investment and risk management of sovereign wealth funds, known as the Santiago Principles.

In addition, the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF), Malta Government Investments (MGI) and the Mauritius Investment Corporation (MIC) were approved as associate members.

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The ANIF was established in 2019 with a mandate to consolidate and effectively manage the ownership of Armenian state-owned enterprises and to promote export growth and investments in Armenia by providing co-financing in large-scale projects at their initial stage of development.

Established in 2013, MGI is a limited liability company owned by the Government of Malta with a mandate to contribute to the development of government-owned companies by holding equity in undertakings and seeking profitable ventures, the company owns 15 million euros ($14.7 million) of assets.

The MIC is a private limited company owned by the Bank of Mauritius, the country’s central bank. The Bank of Mauritius established MIC in June 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to support and accelerate the economic development of Mauritius. The MIC has distributed $46.88 million Mauritian Rupees (US$1.05 million) to 43 different entities since origination.

Associate membership is granted for up to three years. IFSWF associate membership is specifically for institutions in the early stages of becoming sovereign wealth funds. By becoming associate members, the ANIF, MGI and MIC voluntarily agree to work to implement the Santiago Principles, as they put their investment and risk management processes in place.

The new membership announcement follows the Sovereign Fund of Egypt becoming a full-member, and both the Ethiopian Investment Holdings and the Fonds Souverain de Djibouti becoming associate members in May.

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Is Credit Suisse the Next Lehman Brothers?

That question’s the buzz on social media, but the ailing bank seems to have wherewithal to keep going.


Talk is rife on Twitter and other social media that troubled Credit Suisse may become this decade’s Lehman Brothers—a large bank failure that would shake the world and usher in a vicious economic downturn. And you can’t just write off the social media chatter as idle panicky drivel.

The firm’s credit default swaps, in effect insurance against its defaulting on its debt, have jumped lately to their highest level. This implies an almost 25% chance that Credit Suisse will file for bankruptcy in the next five years. All three major credit ratings agencies—S&P, Moody’s and Fitch— now have a negative outlook on Credit Suisse, likely due to the swaps situation.

All this scary stuff has prompted the company, analysts and other financial figures to argue that Credit Suisse has the juice to stay in business. The mere fact that they have to mount these defenses argues that the bank has serious weaknesses. The bank didn’t return a request for comment.

The company has been unprofitable for the past three quarters. Over the past five years, Credit Suisse’s stock price has fallen by some 75%. It has had a revolving door of top executives.

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True, when Lehmann was suffering in 2008, weighed down by its exposure to subprime mortgages, there was a lot of hopeful palaver that things were not that bad—until the bank collapsed and touched off the global financial crisis. And right now, Europe at least seems hell-bent for a recession, owing to the Ukraine-Russia war and Moscow’s natural gas cutback.

But this time, odds are that the commentators have a valid point, that Zurich-based Credit Suisse has sufficient capital and liquidity to weather whatever storms roll in.

“I do not think this is a ‘Lehman moment,’” Mohamed El-Erian, an adviser to Allianz, told CNBC.

“We would be wary of drawing parallels with banks in 2008,” Citigroup analysts said in a client note.

Looking it Credit Suisse’s second quarter, “we see its capital and liquidity position as healthy,” JPMorgan Chase analyst Kian Abouhossein wrote.

It’s comforting that large banks worldwide, to include Credit Suisse, hold much more capital than they did in 2008. As of June, Credit Suisse has a leverage ratio—which measures capital as a portion of assets, mainly loans—of 6.1%, a much better score than other European banks such as Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas.

Indeed, last year’s collapse of Archegos Capital Management has a lot of folks on Wall Street and bourses through the world on edge. The Archegos mess cost Credit Suisse $5.5 billion, showing how interconnected the financial community remains. Archego’s fall, of course, would be nothing like one involving Credit Suisse. Or for that matter, Lehman.

 

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