Qatar- QIA aims to reach $45bn in US investments in 2 years: CEO

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) aims to raise investments in the United States to $45bn in the next two years as it rebalances its portfolio of assets away from Europe, its chief executive said on Sunday.

The sovereign wealth fund has built up a huge European portfolio through stakes in companies including Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, London Stock Exchange and Volkswagen.

QIA currently has about $30bn invested in the US, Mansour Ibrahim al-Mahmoud told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.

"We are talking about $45bn for the US market... we are on track for this over the next two years," he said.

Mahmoud's predecessor Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani in 2015 committed to invest $45bn in the US over a five-year period.

"Our objective is to balance our portfolio...currently we have a little bit of concentration in Europe and having this allocation toward the US market is to balance the portfolio," he said.

In the US, QIA was looking at fundamental sectors such as real estate, technology or US exchanges, he said.

In one such US deal, QIA and hedge fund Elliott Management Corp in December 2017 took Gigamon Inc, the US networking software company, private for $1.6bn.

Mahmoud was speaking as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Qatar on a tour of the region.

The value of bilateral trade between Qatar and the US has doubled in 10 years, Qatar's Minister of Commerce and Industry HE Ali al-Kuwari said at the US-Qatar Strategic Dialogue conference. He said the US tops the list of exporters to the country.

Al-Kuwari said bilateral trade volume reached $6bn in the period from January to October last year.

The minister didn't give the equivalent figure for the previous year but this would be higher than the value for all of 2017, which was about $4.3bn bilateral trade, according to the United States Census Bureau.

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