I didn't know this data was available.  The NYT has a fabulous chart showing the major investment funds owned and operated by foreign governments. 

Why do we worry about China and Dubai governments buying private companies, but not Norway? 

The NY Times chart (created by Standard Chartered and Oxford Analytica) clarifies the equation.  Transparency and strategy.  In other words, the most secretive (least transparent) and most strategic (least conventional) funds are the most worrisome. 

I have focused upon the fact that geopolitical rivals buying U.S. companies are the worst example of sovereign wealth funds.  But the transparency and strategy analysis gets closer to the core.

Conventional funds — like Norway’s and Canada’s — seek to profit through well known techniques like asset allocation.

In strategic funds — like China’s and Dubai’s — other goals may trump the profit motive. For instance, a strategic fund may be more interested in gaining access to Western companies’ know-how — intellectual property, research, design, etc. — than in financial return. Such access allows a government to speed up the development of its domestic markets.

Strategic funds also invest to gain access to raw materials in places that are shunned or relatively untapped by the West. China’s investment in Sudan is a prime example.

China and Dubai are among the worst funds, in terms of U.S. national interests.  They are secretive and they invest for strategic purposes, not conventional investment return purposes.  The analysis may be a good start for new restrictions on foreign investment in the U.S.  

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