Someone, or some entity, may have to sack the sovereign funds from the Middle East and Asia before they take over the Fortune 500. According to The Wall Street Journal "Despite their reputation as passive investors who buy small stakes, sovereign-wealth funds generally buy controlling interests in the companies they target." Which makes them like Carl Icahn and Nelson Peltz without the foreign accents.
A study from an operation which calls itself Monitor Group shows that, of the 420 publicly reported equity investments by these funds since 2000, more than half involved taking a controlling interest.
Congressman and activist groups with unknown motivations are worried that large overseas capital pools will try to influence companies into which they put money. Perhaps this influence will favor the needs of the governments which often manage the sovereign funds.That really does not make them different from other activist investors, unless they want to ship the plans for the latest US fighter plane to Kazakhstan, which the CIA World Factbook says has over eight million people fit for military service.
What Carl Icahn will do with Yahoo! (YHOO) is not clear. He probably will not sell a controlling interest to Russia, unless the country is the top bidder. That makes all the difference.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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