The riches of Qatar is no news, and it’s precisely owing to its wealthy status that the country has displayed a stunning array of state organizations charged with investing it all, over the years. The Qatar Investment Authority is no longer the only body to make it to the headlines. As Qatari investment has grown in volume and sophistication, specialty enterprises have emerged to focus on certain activities.
The QIA, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and two companies within it, Qatar Holdings, which handles most of the country’s abroad direct investment, and Qatari Diar, a property developer, are obviously the most recognizable Qatari governmental entities. The Qatar Investment Authority, along with the Qatari Sports Investment Fund (which invests in sports), and the Qatar Investment Authority (the country’s sovereign wealth fund) has come to stand as the three largest Qatari investors.
The Qatar Investment Authority is by far the largest Qatari investor (QIA). Since its inception in 2005, this sovereign wealth fund has invested tens of billions of dollars in a variety of high-profile purchases around the world. Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, is in charge of the QIA.
It is worth noting that the majority of QIA’s international investments are in strategic sectors and are long-term. Infrastructure, retail, health care, banking, automotive, sports, investment banking, real estate and construction, tourism, agriculture, raw materials, and commerce are just some of the areas where QIA has made investments. Qatar has invested more than £40 billion ($53.3 billion) in the United Kingdom. The HSBC tower, the Shard building, the Olympic Village, the Harrods store, the Savoy Hotel, and its holdings in the Canary Wharf financial district are among them.
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Top 11 Investments Made by Qatar Around the World
Now let us have a look at 11 notable investments made by Qatar around the world.
HARRODS
According to several reports, Qatar Holding spent more than $2 billion for Harrods in May 2010, which also includes real estate and a helicopter charter business.
Charles Henry Harrod established Harrods as a wholesale grocery store in east London in 1834. Mr. Harrod wanted to get away from the violence of London’s east end and gain from trade from the Great Exhibition, so he moved the store to its current location in 1849.
Harrods, which accounts for 5.1% of department store sales in the UK, has constructed a new distribution facility in Newbury to assist sales growth, which totaled 771 million euros (+11%) in 2011 with taxable profits of 148 million euros (+15%).
By enabling the use of UnionPay cards and internationalizing its store signs, Harrods has also given suggestions to its international clientele. Touches that are uniquely Qatari have been quietly developed. The In-Q café, located on the second level, offers beverages as well as the opportunity to purchase products and clothing that represent the emirate’s culture.
PSG
Paris Saint-Germain was fan-owned for the first three years of its existence, with 20,000 socios. PSG changed hands twice, once in 1991 when Canal+ took it and again in 2006 when Colony Capital arrived. PSG has been owned by Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani since 2011 through Qatar Sports Investments, a state-run ownership company (QSI).
QSI, a subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), became the club’s main shareholder in June 2011 and sole shareholder in March 2012. QIA is Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
PSG is a state-owned club, the only one of its kind in the world, and consequently one of the wealthiest teams in the world.Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the chairman of QSI, has been the president of PSG since the takeover.
QSI promised to develop a team capable of winning the UEFA Champions League and establishing the club France’s largest name upon its arrival. Since the summer of 2011, PSG has spent approximately €1.3 billion on player transfers. PSG’s enormous spending has resulted in their dominance of French football, but they have yet to win the coveted Champions League title, as well as raising issues with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play standards.
PSG’s strong financial position has been maintained by the club’s Qatari owners. The team’s on-field success; high-profile signings like Zlatan Ibrahimović, David Beckham, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, and Lionel Messi, and lucrative sponsorship deals with the Qatar Tourism Authority, Nike, Accor, and Air Jordan; and lucrative sponsorship deals with the Qatar Tourism Authority, Nike, Accor, and Air Jordan.
ROSNEFT
The purchase of a share in Rosneft by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2019 paved the way for partnership between the Russian oil major and Qatar Petroleum.
Following the privatization of the Russian state-controlled oil major Rosneft in late 2016, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has become a shareholder and presently has a 19 per cent stake.
Qatar is a modest oil producer in comparison to its vast gas production, state-owned oil company Qatar Petroleum is on a global expansion push. QIA’s stake has allowed Rosneft and Qatar Petroleum to collaborate on projects all over the world.
In 2017, ROSNEFT has also acquired 49.13 percent stake in Nayara Energy, one of the largest Oil Company based in India. Nayara Energy operates India’s second largest Oil Refinery in Vadinar, Gujarat.
Sainsbury’s
In 2007, J Sainsbury PLC (SBRY.LN) approved a Qatari investment fund to do limited due diligence on the U.K. grocery chain, a major step toward a potential GBP10.45 billion sale of the company that had been under siege for quite a few months.
Three Delta, a Qatar-backed investment business, has paid more than £1.4 billion to become the largest shareholder in J Sainsbury, the UK’s third-largest grocery chain. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al Thani, Qatar’s foreign minister, leads the Three Delta. Paul Taylor, a former business associate of Robert Tchenguiz, the property developer who owns more than 5% of J Sainsbury, manages the fund.
Ritz Hotel
As reported in 2020, an investment vehicle managed by the wife of Qatar’s former emir purchased London’s Ritz Hotel. The hotel was bought for roughly £700 million (US$859 million) by a money manager acting for Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, spouse of Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
The 18th-century hotel is located near Buckingham Palace, which is home to Queen Elizabeth II, and overlooks Green Park in downtown London.
The luxurious hotel has 136 rooms, with prices ranging from 650 British pounds ($794) per night for the cheapest room to over 6,000 British pounds for the most costly suite.
For the first time since it opened in 1906, the historic hotel closed its doors to visitors earlier this month.
Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf Group was purchased for £2.6 billion in March 2015, and Songbird Estates PLC, the former majority owner of Canary Wharf Group plc, was delisted from the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market and renamed Canary Wharf Group Investment Holdings plc in 2015.
The Canary Wharf Group is the creator of Europe’s greatest urban rehabilitation project. It is a business and residential property corporation that is responsible for the regeneration of 128 acres of East London’s once-derelict Docklands region as owner, manager, and developer.
Heathrow Airport
In 2012, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund purchased 20% of Heathrow owner BAA, adding the airport operator to a portfolio of British holdings that included Harrods and investments in Barclays and J Sainsbury.
Ferrovial, the largest stakeholder and a Spanish corporation, had to sell a 10.6% stake in BAA’s parent company to Qatar Holding.
Ferrovial and its partners paid about £4.3bn in equity for BAA in 2006 and has since injected about £500m more into the group.
Porsche
In order to shore up its stressed finances, Porsche was obliged to sell assets worth billions of dollars to Qatar in 2010. Qatar Holding bought 10% voting stake in Porsche as well as the majority of its cash-settled options for a Volkswagen investment.
Qatar Holding had also received cash-settled options on Volkswagen shares as part of the agreement.
QIA claimed to exercise the options to buy 17 percent of Volkswagen’s ordinary shares, making it Europe’s third-largest automaker behind Porsche and the German state of Lower Saxony.
Volkswagen
As of 2007, Qatar Holding had acquired the majority of Porsche’s Volkswagen (VW) share options, which it later converted into a 17.5% holding in VW. The move was made possible by Porsche, which owns 51% of VW, deciding to sell a 42% stake in the company to VW, marking a stunning reversal of circumstances since Porsche’s unsuccessful bid to acquire its rival.
Volkswagen Group (VW) and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) recently agreed to develop a self-driving electric transportation project in Doha in 2021. The two partners will deploy autonomous shuttles and buses in Doha’s capital city by 2022 as part of the ‘Project Qatar Mobility’.
Credit Suisse
Qatar purchased Credit Suisse shares in 2008, spending up to $15 billion on European and US bank stocks in the year that followed.
Credit Suisse became the first European bank to receive a license for the Qatar Financial Centre in March 2006, a self-regulated business park meant to entice lenders to Qatar as part of an effort to diversify the Gulf state’s economy away from oil and gas. Qatar has a lengthy history with the Swiss bank, according to Joachim Straehle, head of private banking for Asia, the Middle East, and Russia.
CureVac
CureVac, a German biotech corporation, said in 2020 that Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) had bought an undisclosed interest in the company as part of a $126 million fundraising round, making it the latest high-profile investor to join the company ahead of a possible stock market listing.
The $126 million was raised by CureVac from QIA and a collection of existing and new investors, according to the company.
CureVac is a pioneer in the development of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for infectious diseases using the so-called messenger RNA method.
Conclusion
In today’s globalized world, states compete fiercely to attract international investment. Qatar is a competitor in this rivalry because Western countries want to strengthen their ties with Qatar through strategic cooperation in order to attract funds and investments. Meanwhile, Qatar has been buying or investing in companies that can be classified as European national brands in the form of shares.
Also read: Top Construction Companies in Qatar
