Gulf sovereign funds look to Asia as Mubadala leads dealmaking
Mubadala and its subsidiaries invested $29.2 billion last year, up from $17.5 billion in 2023, and a 67% increase in total deals
Jordan Thompson returns a shot against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard during the Mubadala Citi DC Open tennis tournament last summer (Getty Images)
Competition between sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar is likely to deepen in 2025 as the three Gulf states pour money into China and other developing markets.
The growing focus on Asia is evident from data assembled by Singapore-based Global SWF, whose 2024 report released last week showed Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala edging past Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as the world’s most active sovereign investor.
Mubadala and its subsidiaries invested $29.2 billion last year, up from $17.5 billion in 2023, and a 67% increase in total deals. The PIF chopped its investment spending by 37% to $19.9 billion last year, down from $31.6 billion in 2023.
Three other Gulf funds were ranked among the top 10 global dealmakers: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, ADQ and the Qatar Investment Authority, the Global SWF report showed.
Over the past 12 months, Gulf sovereign wealth funds invested almost $10 billion in China, the largest such volume in history, Global SWF Managing Director Diago Lopez said in an interview published today with Arabian Gulf Business Insight.
Every time investment managers come across “a good opportunity to invest in emerging economies, they are now taking it because they know that they need to diversify away from developed markets,” Lopez told AGBI.