Kuwait's sovereign fund denies losing $94 billion

Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the Gulf country’s sovereign wealth fund, has denied a claim which said its assets dropped by $94 billion due to the global financial crisis.

In a statement quoted by KUNA, Kuwait’s official news agency, KIA acting Managing Director Othman Ibrahim Al-Issa said the authority has asked the UN agency which reported the losses to rectify the mistake.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its World Investment Report 2009, released last week, that Kuwait sovereign fund assets shrank by $94 billion last year due to the economic meltdown.

The report also said that four Gulf sovereign wealth funds, including Kuwait, lost a total $350 billion last year. "KIA said it has sent a letter to UNCTAD secretary general on Sunday asking him to rectify the gross mistake it committed by saying Kuwaiti assets slumped by $94 billion," Issa said.

KIA has asked the UN organisation to amend the figures in the report by publishing correct figures, said Issa without providing figures for the losses incurred by the Kuwaiti sovereign fund or its current assets.

KIA has not stopped investing despite the global financial crisis and still sees "promising" opportunities in the services, financial and real estate sectors which were affected by the economic downturn, he added.

KIA, which manages state assets in the world's fourth-biggest oil exporter, is investing across asset classes around the globe. The authority has come under fire from some parliamentarians for investing $5 billion in the US banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch last year before both stocks nosedived.

Merrill has since been bought by the Bank of America. KIA was managing foreign assets worth about 49 billion Kuwait dinars ($170.9 billion) at December 31.