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Fund of the Month (Oct'20): Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF)

1st October, 2020

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) was established in 2014 as the successor of the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF), under the umbrella of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

Fund of the Month (Sept'20): Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA)

1st September, 2020

The Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) was established in 2012 with an initial injection of USD 5 billion from O&G proceeds, which made it (and still is) the largest SWF in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the fund has gone through various Governance issues, with the son of the country’s President, José Filomeno “Zenú” dos Santos, acting as its Chairman. On August 15, 2020, after an eight-month trial, Zenú was sentenced to five years in jail for embezzling US$ 0.5 billion from the Central Bank. This could be a second chance for the SWF, despite the significant withdrawals faced during the past 14 months. We had the pleasure of catching up with Miguel Carneiro, former Head of Alternatives Investments at FSDEA and currently a partner at AFC & Partners.

Fund of the Month (Aug'20): Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF)

1st August, 2020

The Turkish Sovereign Fund was established in 2016 as the strategic investment arm of the Republic of Turkey. After a rocky start where the country’s President Erdogan rewamped TWF’s management and reshuffled the board by appointing himself as the Chairman, the fund seems to have finally found the support and stability to be among the world’s leading SWFs. The recruitment of Mr. Zafer Sönmez as its CEO in September 2018, after he had spent six years with Khazanah, has been instrumental towards that goal. We had the pleasure of catching up with Mr. Sönmez and discussing with him TWF’s recent progress and improvement of its GSR score.