With business chiefs from across the world due to descend on St Petersburg for its annual economic forum (SPIEF) next month, the head of Russia’s Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev this week claimed that sovereign wealth funds – principally from the Gulf – would disclose details of investment deals worth at least $20bn during the course of the event. “Our co-investors include India, China, Middle East and some other countries,” he said. “There will be deals in oil, transport and logistics, transport infrastructure, mining and healthcare. We already have around $20bn from Middle Eastern partners that we are seeking to deploy.”
In February 2017, Middle East investors took a minority stake in Russian Helicopters alongside the Russian Direct Investment FundSet up in 2011, RDIF currently has at least eight partnerships with state-backed investors including DP World and Mubadala from the UAE; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and General Investment Authority (SAGIA); Mumtalaka (Bahrain); and the Kuwait Investment Authority.Since its inception, it has been instrumental in attracting FDI into several projects including:
- The acquisition of a stake in Russian Helicopters
- The IPO of the Alrosa diamond company
- Overseas investment into SIBUR’s ZapSibNeftekhim integrated petrochemical complex in the Tyumen Region
- The flotation of Magnit, Russia’s largest retailer
- The acquisition of a minority stake in PhosAgro, one of the world’s largest vertically integrated producers of mineral fertilizers. and
- The establishment of Russia’s largest integrated dairy complex in the Ryazan region