Nickname for the “fundraising tours” undertaken by bankers desperate for support from sovereign wealth funds during the nadir of the financial crisis.
“The white knights that came to the rescue of banks during the financial crisis are going home, with their pockets full of bounty from their good deeds,” reported Eric Dash in The Times:
In less than two years, many of the biggest overseas government investment funds, known as sovereign wealth funds, have reaped huge gains from bailing out financial institutions, and in turn, the global financial system.
In the latest announcement, Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund said on Sunday that it had booked a $1.1 billion profit on the stake it took in Citigroup in January 2008. That equals a 37 percent return on its initial $3 billion investment. Other sovereign wealth funds — including those backed by the governments of Singapore, Qatar and Abu Dhabi — have also recently cashed out stakes in foreign banks for comparably large gains. …
Many sovereign funds invested in the early days of the crisis as banks scrambled to find investors willing to plow in money and exacted lucrative terms. (Swings through Asia and the Middle East were so common that bankers coined the phrase “Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Goodbye” to describe their fund-raising tours.)
But as financial stocks continued to plummet last year, the so-called smart money supplied by foreign governments no longer looked so sure. Now, as bank shares have rebounded faster than most analysts had projected and governments face internal political pressure at home, the funds are racing to lock in gains.
“The white knights that came to the rescue of banks during the financial crisis are going home, with their pockets full of bounty from their good deeds,” reported Eric Dash in The Times:
In less than two years, many of the biggest overseas government investment funds, known as sovereign wealth funds, have reaped huge gains from bailing out financial institutions, and in turn, the global financial system.
In the latest announcement, Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund said on Sunday that it had booked a $1.1 billion profit on the stake it took in Citigroup in January 2008. That equals a 37 percent return on its initial $3 billion investment. Other sovereign wealth funds — including those backed by the governments of Singapore, Qatar and Abu Dhabi — have also recently cashed out stakes in foreign banks for comparably large gains. …
Many sovereign funds invested in the early days of the crisis as banks scrambled to find investors willing to plow in money and exacted lucrative terms. (Swings through Asia and the Middle East were so common that bankers coined the phrase “Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Goodbye” to describe their fund-raising tours.)
But as financial stocks continued to plummet last year, the so-called smart money supplied by foreign governments no longer looked so sure. Now, as bank shares have rebounded faster than most analysts had projected and governments face internal political pressure at home, the funds are racing to lock in gains.
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