Sovereign wealth and pension funds controlling Canadian businesses

In the case of SWFs, the reduction in corporate tax of the country where the company resides is only offset by some withholding taxes deducted from payments to the SWF. [...] In particular, our paper does not deal with the question of whether — merely by virtue of the ownership and control of a domestic enterprise by a foreign government through a sovereign wealth fund — the acquired enterprise would be asked to act, not in its own pure economic interests as if it were privately owned, but rather in the national political interests of the foreign government, to the pos [...] Of the total AUM, 42 per cent belong to countries in East Asia (China having the largest AUM in the region) and 32 per cent to countries in the Middle East region, followed by Europe (the Norwegian Government Pension Fund being the largest) representing 20 per cent of the aggregate AUM. [...] The result of the relaxation of this foreign-property rule (FPR) is reflected in the growth in the percentage of aggregate foreign assets held by pension funds, which rose from 20 per cent in 2000 to 25 per cent by 2011. [...] In the discussion below, we do not differentiate between SWFs and Canadian pension funds and thus ignore the reality that, in the case of the former, the benefits may go to investors in a foreign country, whereas in the case of the latter, the benefits may accrue to domestic investors.