Word: kuwait
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fact, bankers familiar with SAMA'S investments state flatly that the agency has little if anything to hide; the world's richest investor is also its most conservative. While other OPEC nations like Kuwait have a fondness for foreign land deals and high-stakes stock market plays, SAMA restricts itself to buying less than 5% of a company's stock. Explains a London banker who deals closely with SAMA: "The Saudis have an absolute terror of American politicians standing on the floor of the Senate and accusing them of buying up America...
What the tiny (pop. 1.4 million) Persian Gulf emirate of Kuwait loses in size to Saudi Arabia, it more than makes up for in aggressive money management. In contrast to the Saudis, with their conservative investment policies, the Kuwaitis have long used their surplus oil revenues, which now exceed an estimated $65 billion, to wheel and deal in real estate and in the stocks and bonds of blue-chip Western companies...
Unlike the desert-dwelling Saudis, the coastal Arabs of Kuwait have a lengthy tradition of commerce with other peoples. Less orthodox in their Islamic observance than the Saudis, the Kuwaitis also have a more relaxed and open attitude toward banking and finance. Sniffing out a deal is in their blood...
...Kuwait has built an impressive investment portfolio, with some $7 billion in the securities of a rich slice of U.S. industry that includes everything from computer companies to energy firms to banks. The Kuwaiti U.S. portfolio is managed chiefly by New York's Citibank, though reportedly Kuwaiti officials have threatened to move some of it elsewhere because of dissatisfaction with the bank's management of their investments...
...Kuwaitis have moved rapidly into the U.S. Sunbelt. They own the 30-story Atlanta Hilton Hotel, as well as all of South Carolina's Kiawah Island, a resort that has generated some $200 million in revenues for the Kuwaitis on an original investment of only $17.4 million. Kuwait owns parcels of real estate in New Orleans, Boston and Washington, D.C., including office space now rented by the General Services Administration...