The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country's sovereign wealth fund, is in the middle of expanding into Australia, Korea and Southeast Asia, its top executive said on Thursday.

QIA also sees investment opportunities including carve-outs among conglomerates and take-private deals in Japan, and in the technology sector in India.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

QIA is one of the world's largest investors. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute has estimated that QIA runs $526 billion worth of total assets.

KEY QUOTES

"For Australia and Korea we are going to start hiring people," Abdulla Ali Al-Kuwari, head of Asia Pacific at Qatar Investment Authority Advisory, said at the Milken Institute Asia Summit 2024 in Singapore.

"We started Japan with the team maybe three years ago, now we are doubling it, we are going to hire more and more people so it is a market to focus for us," he said.

CONTEXT

The Asian expansion by QIA, which owns stakes in the London Stock Exchange and Iberdrola SA, comes as the fund has been diversifying its investments from core European and U.S. markets.

In June, Reuters reported that QIA has agreed to buy a 10% stake in China's second-largest mutual fund company, China Asset Management.

(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui Editing by Tomasz Janowski)