Are Sovereign Wealth Funds contrarian investors?

This paper investigates the determinants of the investment activity of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) at a macro level, with special emphasis on the possible reaction to a financial crisis in a potential target economy. The analysis relies upon a specially built proprietary database, which encompasses 1,903 acquisition deals spanning the period 1995-2010 and involving 29 out of the 69 existing SWFs. According to a three-step modelling approach, we find that this class of investors prefers to invest in countries with a higher degree of economic development, larger and more liquid financial markets, institutions that offer better protection of legal rights, and a more stable macroeconomic environment. Most importantly, and in stark contrast with the existing empirical literature on other major institutional investors, SWFs seem to engage in �contrarian� investment behaviour, i.e. increasing their acquisitions in countries where crises hit. The results are shown to be valid if we consider both the likelihood of a country being the target of SWFs� investments and the amount SWFs choose to invest in each country. Capital flows stemming from SWFs� acquisition activity worldwide may therefore eventually have a stabilizing effect on local markets during periods of financial turmoil, protecting the targeted countries from foreign shocks instead of propagating them globally.