At the end of 2011, sovereign wealth funds' assets under management amounted to $3 trillion, following 237 direct investments worth $81 billion that year. Some experts even estimate SWFs' assets to be worth $6 trillion. This means that SWFs, the avatars of state capitalism, are now twice as rich as the world's hedge funds, the totems of liberal capitalism's excesses.
The growing might of SWFs is causing concern — and, in some cases, inciting virulent criticism — particularly in host countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development where many fear the redistribution of financial, economic and political power to emerging countries that have very different political regimes from their own.
In fact, of the seven SWFs that control more than two-thirds of all SWFs' assets, three are from Asia (one from China and two from Singapore) and three are from the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar).