Sovereign Wealth Funds Assets Grow by 14%, Would Represent the Third Largest Economy in the World

The 2024 edition of our annual Sovereign Wealth Funds report, produced in collaboration with ICEX-Invest in Spain, was presented yesterday. It analyzes the strategies and transformative impact of the investments made by these key global players.

Javier Capapé, research director of the project, highlighted the following key findings from the 2024 report:

- Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) expanded their global footprint, with assets under management growing by 14% from $11.6 trillion in 2022 to $13.2 trillion in 2023. This would represent the third largest economy in the world, after the US and China.

- In 2023, the group of SWFs increased their assets under management by $1.6 trillion, essentially creating the equivalent of Spain’s economy in just 12 months.

- The largest SWFs continue to be concentrated in four areas: the Middle East, China, Norway and Singapore.

- The report highlights the shift in investment priorities, with healthcare, energy and industrials gaining prominence.

- In Spain, 2024 marks the second most significant year in attracting sovereign investment in the historical series, with a 140% increase compared to the previous year.

At the presentation event, we were honored to have an address by the Secretary of State for Commerce of Spain, Amparo López Senovilla. Elisa Carbonell (CEO of ICEX) and Irene Blázquez (Director of the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University) provided welcoming remarks.

We also enjoyed a conversation about the impact of international investment funds on the Spanish economy with Jesús González (Managing Director, BME Growth and BME Scale UP), Almudena Trigo (Partner and cofounder, BeAble Capital), Clara Campàs (Managing Partner and cofounder, Asabys Partners) and Miguel Tiana (Director General, COFIDES).

Thank you to the whole ICEX-Invest in Spain team for the longstanding collaboration on this project and for hosting the presentation event, and thank you to all the attendees for their interest one more year as we mark the 12th edition of the report.

For more information about our Sovereign Wealth Funds research project and to download the full 2024 report, please visit the project's webpage here.