Kuwait Sovereign Wealth Fund Head: Investors Reduce US Exposure at Own Risk

The head of the Kuwait Investment Authority, which manages almost US$1 trillion in assets, said the sovereign wealth fund is committed to investing in the US and that investors cut allocations to US assets at their own risk.

Some global investors have ditched US assets in recent weeks on fears that US President Donald Trump’s overhaul of global trade may hurt the US economy, and could cause deeper long-term damage. The trend looks set to continue, given that a record number of managers have said they plan to keep cutting their exposure to US assets, according to BofA research.

Kuwait has been investing in the US market for a “long time” and that “won’t change,” KIA Managing Director Sheikh Saoud Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah said at an investment conference in the Qatari capital on Wednesday.
“I would say it very bluntly, underweight America at your own risk,” he said.

Last week, Moody’s downgraded the US sovereign credit rating by one notch, citing concerns about the nation’s growing US$36 trillion debt pile, which could make investors more cautious and drive up borrowing costs across the economy.

“They (investors) are merely looking at equity markets, but they’re not taking into fact the US has the largest fixed income market, the US has the largest private equity market, the real estate market, infrastructure and credit,” Al-Sabah said. “I think the US has the breadth and depth to sustain its exceptionalism and it has the rule of law as well,” he said.