Qatari investors have yet again deployed their sovereign wealth in the Western banking sector, after a vehicle controlled by a member of the Gulf state’s royal family became the first large foreign shareholder in Kaupthing, taking a 5% stake in Iceland’s largest bank.

Kaupthing revealed in a statement this morning that Q Iceland Finance, a wholly owned subsidiary of a company owned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, has taken a 5.01% stake in the bank by buying 37.1 million shares for Ikr25.6bn (€195.4m).