Qatari sovereign wealth fund cannot leave Russia
Earlier, the Prime Minister of Qatar said that the fund does not distribute funds from Russian assets.
The Qatar Sovereign Fund (QIA) cannot enter the Russian market due to the military conflict in Ukraine, so the fund has taken a wait-and-see evaluation and will reassess its capabilities, Reuters reports, citing one of the portfolio managers.
“There is not much we can do in Russia… We have to determine what our capabilities are,” Ahmed Ali Al-Hammadi, chief portfolio manager for Europe, said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said in an interview with a German newspaper Handelsblattthat QIA is not going to leave the Russian market.
Qatar Sovereign Fund is a longtime investor in the Russian market. The fund even participated in an additional issue of VTB for $500 million in 2013. Fall 2018 Reuters wrote that VTB gave the Swiss Sovereign Fund of Qatar about $6 billion to acquire a 19.5% stake in Rosneft. VTB then denied this.
Foreign investors cannot expect to receive assets now. Russia has introduced temporary restrictions on the exit of foreign assets from Russian assets: they cannot trade on stock exchanges and receive payments on securities to a type “C” account.
“We do not organize [покинуть рынок — FM]. All foreign investors are limited in their ability to sell assets,” Al-Hammadi complained.