Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, which controls more than $100 billion of assets, plans to set up a $10 billion investment venture with China's CITIC Group as it seeks to diversify from retail and property assets in Europe.
The two signed a preliminary agreement for the fund Tuesday, with the deal to be completed in coming months, said Ahmad Al-Sayed, CEO of the Qatar Investment Authority. QIA and CITIC will each invest $5 billion.
Qatar plans to put as much as $20 billion into Asia in the next five years and expand offices in Beijing and New Delhi. The QIA is an investor in CITIC Capital Holdings, an alternative investment company backed by the state-owned CITIC Group and the $652.7 billion China Investment Corp., Beijing, and focused on private equity in Japan, China and the U.S., and real estate in China.
“They're diversifying,” said Bobby Sarkar, a head of research at Qatar National Bank Financial Services, said Tuesday by phone. China “is eventually going to be the biggest economy and they'd like a bigger presence there.”
Doha-based QIA has about $115 billion in assets, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.
