French President Nicolas Sarkozy has outlined plans to transform the country's largest institutional investor into one of the world's biggest sovereign wealth funds, reversing his previous stance that such funds obey no economic logic.
Sarkozy revealed yesterday that he intends to turn Caisse des Depots et Consignations, a public financial institution that invests in the public interest, into a SWF. Caisse des Depots has assets of more than â¬400bn ($635bn) and holds a stake in half of the companies listed in the CAC index.
