Money Concepts Website
ACB Business Partners is the business subsidiary of America’s Community Bankers, a national trade association representing the nation’s community banks.

Business News - Money, Market, Stocks - AOL News
Business News – real estate to money and finance, advertising to stock quotes, business news has the latest news articles. Find the latest business news on investment, the economy

Market News - AOL Money & Finance
Financial market news on investing, stock markets, equity growth, and the latest IPO calendars. Stocks Fall Amid Weak Economic Data 02/21/08 14:06 EST. NEW YORK (AP) - Wall

CBC.ca News - Money
RIM sees strong gain in BlackBerry subscribers The maker of the popular BlackBerry wireless Rogue trades send Société Générale to $4.9B loss in Q4 Troubled French bank

ABC News
On the internet news, breaking news, feature stories and more

Business, financial, personal finance news - CNNMoney
Combines practical personal finance advice, calculators and investing tips with business news, stock quotes, and financial market coverage from the editors of CNN and Money

Money & Business - NY Daily News
Get up to the minute business news and financial information including Wall street, interest rates, company profiles and more. Pain at pump worsens. Gas prices jumped to their

Money news, personal finance news, financial news - Money extra
Money extra - money news and personal finance in-depth news published everyday Top Story. Home repossessions - Payment shock more muted? Even though representing an 8-year high

Money News Headlines
The latest Money news and information updated daily.

iWon Money & Investing
All quotes delayed up to 20 minutes. There is new news. Quotes supplied by ComStock, Inc. Click here for terms and conditions.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Deals, China, Middle East, Citigroup Inc. (C), Merrill Lynch (MER), Politics

News that the European Commission is planning to adopt proposals next week that will ask sovereign wealth funds to accept a code of conduct to govern their investment activities, raises the question if the U.S. government should take a look at the impact these funds might have on U.S. security.

Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, stated the code will outline standards of governance and transparency for such funds.

“The emphasis in their investments should be on commercial motivations, not national or strategic considerations. I think such a code is possible to draw up and would get acceptance from the wealth funds,” the report quoted Mandelson as saying.

German companies, for example, are worried that China will steal their intellectual property or that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to use such investments “as a political instrument,” according to European Member of Parliament Wolf Klinz.

With the huge inflows that the U.S. banking system are getting from some funds of allied countries (some more than others), where is the cry from the public to at least investigate the impact on national security? Citigroup (NYSE: C) raised $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) raised more than $5 billion from Korea and Kuwait. After all, one of the important tools used in the war on terror is actually tracking money flows in and out of banks. This is much more easily done if the banks are owned by U.S. citizens. But if the banks transfer over control to foreign governments, that could potentially have a major impact.

It wasn’t too long ago that the proposal that the United Arab Emirates’ government-owned ports company would have control over the operations of major ports in the United Says was met with such fierce opposition that the proposal was beaten back. Where is the same national debate over these sovereign wealth funds buying big stakes in the U.S. banking system?

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no position in any stock mentioned as of 2/23/08.

Share This

Share This