Tuesday, August 18, 2009

[READ THIS] Who Holds the Sovereign Wealth of this Nation and Why? --- by Reform Party

This is a recommended read by me.
Its an article from Reform Party's website, which I find really good.

source: http://www.thereformparty.net/?p=283

Who Holds the Sovereign Wealth of this Nation and Why?
August 8, 2009 by admin

excerpt from the article:
Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are not a new idea. According to Wikipedia, the term Sovereign Wealth Fund was first used by Andrew Rozanov in an article entitled, ‘Who holds the wealth of nations?’ in the Central Banking Journal of May 2005. A SWF may be broadly defined as a state-owned investment fund composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property, precious metals or other financial instruments.
Theoretically one can distinguish two types of SWFs. The first, and the oldest form of SWF, is one set up to manage revenues from an exhaustible resource such as oil, or one which derives its assets from government budget surpluses. An example of one based on resources, and arguably the first SWF was the Kuwait Investment Authority, a commodity SWF created in 1953 from oil revenues before Kuwait even gained independence from Great Britain. A more recent example is the Norwegian SWF which was set up primarily to ensure that the wealth represented by Norway’s oil reserves was not squandered on current consumption but turned into financial assets which would benefit future generations.
Temasek could be said to be an example of the first type of SWF. It was set up in 1974 to hold stakes in the various government-controlled companies, such as DBS, SIA and Singapore Technologies, that had previously been held by the Ministry of Finance. The Temasek Holdings website states that “Our investments are funded through dividends we receive from our portfolio companies, our divestment proceeds, commercial borrowings, a maiden Yankee bond issue in 2005 and occasional asset injections from our shareholder, the Minister for Finance (Incorporated).”


continue reading here: http://www.thereformparty.net/?p=283

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