LONDON, 26 February 2007 — Qatar is poised to enter the major league of petrodollar investors and its cash-rich funds and companies could soon rival those in the United Arab Emirates in the global hunt for assets.
Qatar’s increasing interest in foreign acquisitions is part of a trend to lock in profits from high oil and gas prices that has thrust Gulf firms into high-profile bidding wars and is already leading to intra-regional competition, analysts said.
“Qatar has been investing quietly in Asia for a while. The ticket size and profile are getting bigger. They are coming out of the wings,” said Hashem Montasser, head of asset management at EFG-Hermes, a Cairo-based investment bank.
Qatar, which holds the world’s third largest gas reserves, is building up long-term investments for when these run out and seeking skills and technology to diversify the domestic economy. It signaled the scale of its ambitions this week by confirming a state-owned fund was in talks to buy a stake in EADS, parent of the world’s biggest planemaker, Airbus.
Britain’s Sunday Telegraph has linked the fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), to a bid for supermarket group J. Sainsbury Plc, while the Wall Street Journal put Qatar Telecommunications Co. on a list of bidders for Indian mobile operator Hutchison Essar this month.