COMMENT Sovereign wealth funds are suddenly the capital provider of first and last resort for ailing US financial institutions, investing at least $30bn (£15.3bn, €20.5bn) in some of the biggest banks and brokerages on Wall Street, including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
They are in many ways the dream investor: not only do they come flush with money but also “they are massive, passive and patient”, as Mark Bradley, who heads Morgan Stanley’s relationships with private equity firms and other large pools of capital, puts it. In other words, they lack the motivation and the resources to demand swift and radical change.
