S - Sovereign Wealth Funds: What’s the big idea ... and

He is the author of The Public Wealth of Nations – The Economist’s and Financial Times’ best book of the year – and The Public Wealth of Cities. [...] He was a member of the Advisory Committee for the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) (2017-2021) and a member of the Investment Committee of the Courts Service of Ireland (2010-2020). [...] It was stated in the manifesto that the party would: ‘[C]reate a number of such funds, known as Future Britain funds, which will hold in trust the investments of the British people, backing British infrastructure and the British economy.’ The early funds, they said, would be formed out of revenues from shale gas extraction, dormant assets, and the receipts of sale of some public assets. [...] The ‘John Penrose model’ and the case for a UK sovereign wealth fund In an early paper published by the Social Market Foundation think tank in 2016, the MP John Penrose called for a UK sovereign wealth fund to be created in order ‘to address “long- term and structurally ingrained weaknesses” of the economy.’33 In Time to think big: A UK Sovereign Wealth Fund (2020) for the Reform think tank, John. [...] The PWF opportunity Turning to the asset side of the balance sheet, the UK was an early adopter of privatisation for state-owned businesses and real estate since the early 1980s and has returned or 29 SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS: WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? transferred to the private sector a wide range of industrial, transport, utility, infrastructure and property assets.