According to a press release, quoted by Angop, the Sovereign Wealth Fund recorded a profit of 189 million dollars on debt and equity instruments. In total, the fund ended last year's accounts with a profit of 234 million dollars.
The Sovereign Wealth Fund had the accounts for 2017, 2018 and 2019 in arrears due to lack of additional information, the document states, emphasizing that last year alone the fund had assets worth 4587 million dollars and equity of 3669 million dollars.
However, the figures show that in 2018 the results were not so encouraging: the Sovereign Wealth Fund recorded losses in the order of 104 million dollars. These losses were the result of poor performance in foreign markets, where the fund had made an investment of 1431 million dollars.
Later that year, the fund closed its accounts with assets of 4540 million dollars and 4435 million dollars in equity. In the previous year, the Sovereign Wealth Fund had 4652 million dollars in assets and 4539 million dollars in equity and closed the accounts with a loss of 384 million dollars.
The losses recorded in 2017 resulted from the cancellation of the potential capital gains recognised in 2016, on assets constituted by the State concessions for the construction and operation of the Port of Caio, the operation of six farms and the forest perimeters for a total of 435 million dollars.
The note also states that the changes made in the administration of the fund led to net investment management costs rising from 20 million in 2017 to 7 million the following year. The costs rose from 68 million to 32 million in 2018.
For 2019, net investment management costs were 4 million in 2019 and operating costs were 15 million in the same period.
When the new management took over the administration of the fund, it no longer had access to relevant information on alternative investments after the contract with the first manager (Quantum Global) had ended. This lack of access has conditioned the completion of the financial statements for 2017.
However, the Board of Directors decided to close the accounts anyway with the information it had, but it was not sufficient to proceed with the presentation of the results, thus justifying the note the delays in the presentation of the accounts for the last three years.
Already in 2018 the board of directors hired, through a public tender, the international company Investec Asset Management - currently called Ninety One UK Limited - which on 31 December 2018 and 2019, managed 28 per cent and 32 per cent of the fund's assets, respectively.
After having control of all its assets, the board of directors concluded the financial statements for 2017 in August 2019, for 2018 in December 2019 and for 2019 in July 2020, thus being in a position to settle the delays in the publication of the accounts.
The communiqué concludes by saying that the process of restructuring and redemption of control of the fund's assets has already been concluded and that from now on it will comply with the legislation and the Santiago Principles which aim at transparency, publishing the annual financial statements and the quarterly accounts.
