As the world economy emerges from the rubble of the financial crisis, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have consolidated their position as relevant players in global financial markets and beyond. Though 2007 projections that estimated that the value of SWF assets would reach $12 trillion in 2015 grossly overestimated their growth trajectory, SWFs command substantial financial power. In late 2009, the asset value of the SWFs in the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) reached $2.4 trillion. In addition, SWFs have increasingly turned to asset classes beyond debt securities, with China’s China Investment Corporation predictably focusing on commodity assets and Arab SWFs taking concentrated stakes in European industrial assets, for example. The staying power of SWFs as an investor class and their increasingly diversified investment strategies will keep them on the radar of financial analysts and corporate leaders in mature economies. But they might also be subject to the reemergence of political complications.

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