Kuwait says its Jan. investment in Citi was $3B Tuesday June 24, 10:39 am ET <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="4"><tbody><tr><td height="4"> </td></tr></tbody></table>Kuwait sovereign wealth fund says its January investments in Citi, Merrill totaled $5B NEW YORK (AP) -- Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund has revealed that its January investments in Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. totaled $5 billion.In a statement on its Web site Tuesday, the Kuwait Investment Authority said it agreed to invest $3 billion in Citigroup's $12.5 billion offering and $2 billion in Merrill Lynch's $6.6 billion offering. The two U.S.-based banks had announced in January how much they were raising in total, but did not give details about how much Kuwait's fund in particular had invested. Government of Singapore Investment Corp. also participated in Citigroup's January offering, and Korean Investment Corp. participated in Merrill Lynch's. The cash-raising efforts were aimed at shoring up the banks' finances after huge losses in risky debt.
Investing in Citigroup and Merrill Lynch is like pouring perfectly good (albeit perfectly worthless) FRNs down 2 black holes at the same time. Only the Kuwaitis would pump money into a losing cause...
Makes one wonder what deal it took to get them to put their FRNs into the deal. What type of return what type of takeover they can do if they wanted.
Look who else is putting their dollars to work! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=alUJZgGm4GUI
It really isn't too surprising considering how many of the SWF hold USDs which is obviously a losing battle. The part that is interesting is how more of them aren't buying U.S. food and big pharma companies considering the obvious indicators of where our economy is heading, they would be a decent investment as people will need more medication and food as times get worse.
