'Walk' pledge by CIC

By Josephine Lau  |   2008-6-14  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

CHINA Investment Corp, the nation's US$200-billion sovereign fund, will walk away from potential investments in countries that have voiced "too much" concern about the influence of such funds, an official said.

"CIC's worse off than anyone else because there's still this Cold War mentality about 'Red China,'" President and Chief Investment Officer Gao Xiqing said at a mergers and acquisitions conference in Beijing yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. "Why don't people let the economics decide, rather than focus on the political bullshit?"

Gao, who oversaw CIC's more than US$8 billion of investments in Blackstone Group LP and Morgan Stanley last year, said yesterday that he sees a "real threat" of more government restraints on investment. Barack Obama, the presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee, has called for greater scrutiny of sovereign-wealth funds, pools of government-controlled money that invest in companies.

"We have no incentive and no intention to seek control of the companies we invest in," said Gao. "Our sole purpose is to make a profit."