China’s CIC Seeks Funding After “Fairly Good” Returns in 2010
China Investment Corp., the nation’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, posted “fairly good” returns last year and will seek more money from the government to increase investments, Executive Vice President Jesse Wang said today.
“We hope to get more funding,” Wang told a forum in Beijing today, without specifying the amount. CIC invested all its cash and cash equivalents last year and is awaiting the government’s decision on additional funding, Wang said.
CIC posted an 11.7 percent return on its overseas portfolio in 2009, reversing a loss a year earlier, as it raised bets on commodities to benefit from a rebound in global markets. Lou Jiwei, chairman of the fund, is visiting the U.S. next week with Chinese President Hu Jintao as the nation seeks to diversify an investment portfolio that includes $906.8 billion in U.S. Treasuries.
China should consider investing its foreign-exchange reserves in energy, resources, high technology and agriculture, Wang said. Devoting too much of its reserves to U.S. assets such as treasuries may be risky, he said. Cash and cash equivalents formed about a third of CIC’s portfolio in 2009.
CIC helped refinance a Manhattan office tower co-owned by Carlyle Group last year, in a sign that the fund is stepping up its U.S. real-estate investments. CIC joined forces with AREA Real Estate Finance Corp. of New York to buy an unspecified preferred equity stake in 650 Madison Ave., the 27-story building that is headquarters to Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., Bradford Wildauer, AREA’s president, said earlier this month.
--Zhang Dingmin, Liza Lin. Editors: Neil Western, Will Hadfield.
To contact the Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zhang Dingmin in Beijing at Dzhang14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net
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