The Abu Dhabi and Kuwaiti sovereign wealth funds have respectively reported a profit of USD30 million each from their investments made in the recently sold UK Royal Mail. The shares in the firm rose by 40% above issue price after its IPO in the London bourse last Friday.
Amongst those that reported hefty returns were the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Landsdowne, GIC and Norges. The Gulf based sovereign wealth funds had bought about GBP50 million or USD79 million each and the 40% increase netted an instant profit of GBP18 million or USD28.7 million,
The IPO price of Royal Mail had been the subject of much discussion, if it were priced too low especially after the nearly double increase in value in such as short period. This was the criticism of Labour party members on the decision by the Tories as to the IPO price for the largest sell off of UK assets in the past twenty years.
According to British Business Secretary Vince Cable, "You get an enormous amount of froth and speculation in the aftermath of a big initial public offering of this kind, its of absolutely no significance whatsoever. What matters is where the price eventually settles and if we look back on this in three months, six months time, or indeed years to come, that's what we're really interested in."
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