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I am delighted to pass along the summary of the Global SWF 2026 Annual Report. There is a lot of data to consider in the Report. Here from the Press Release::
Like every January 1, we at Global SWF are delighted to share our Annual Report - the most timely, insightful, and thorough summary of all activities and trends among Sovereign Investors. This year's takeaways include:1. Sovereign Wealth Funds passed US$ 15 trillion in AuM for the first time in history - thanks to the rally in financial markets, new inflows from governments, and new vehicles being established. Together with pension funds and central banks, state-owned investors have reached an aggregate US$ 60 trillion.
2. Deal activity also reached a historic maximum, with US$ 278 billion in 562 investments. The "Gulf 7” SWFs (largest and most active SWFs in the Gulf: ADIA, ADQ, Mubadala, ICD, KIA, QIA and PIF) stood for 43% of that capital spent, US$ 119 billion (+43% from 2024). Deals volume continued to drop, with an average ticket of $0.5b.
3. PIF was the top spender of the year with US$ 36.2 billion - however if we exclude EA’s deal, it falls to #12, and Mubadala is the winner for second year in a row, with US$ 33.7 billion. Canada’s Maple 8 increased their spend in 67% to US$ 61 billion (25% of the total), while Singaporean funds together stayed flat at US$ 31 billion.
4. The USA was especially dominant in 2025 as the main recipient of capital - as 47% of all sovereign investments went to the United States. Europe and Developed Asia-Pacific also received more capital than in 2024, while Emerging Markets - especially China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia experienced a 26% drop from 2024.
5. Divestments are also becoming important as SWFs and PPFs continue to mature - but many of these assets end up being acquired by other consortiums featuring SWFs and PPFs.
6. CalPERS was crowned Fund of the Year for several reasons including its leadership among US retirement systems, its growing investment and sustainability activity, and its adoption of forward-looking strategies, such as the Total Portfolio Approach. Do not miss our interview with its CIO.
7. Malaysia is analyzed as Region of the Year, now that the 1MDB case can be left behind. And partnerships and platforms were named theme of the year, looking at the blurry lines between LPs and GPs. AI continued to build momentum, and has received US$ 21 billion from SOIs in the past six years. As a result, technology (and also real assets) increased in interest.
8. The year saw 11 new SWFs, six new offices (and five offices closed), 28 new CEOs, and 28 new CIOs.
9. Outlook for 2026 continues to be strong, with several State-Owned Investors transforming Scale to Strategy - including Temasek, which will restructure on April 1.
10. We expect the industry to continue to grow to US$ 22 trillion (SWFs) and US$ 80 trillion (all SOIs) in assets under management by 2030.
The Global SWF team also announced that "our subscribers can access the full 64-page document at https://globalswf.com/reports/2026annual once they have logged in. And if you are interested in subscribing, please let us know!
The Executive Summary Follows below.
