From the Back Cover
Forewords by Margaret Franklin (President and CEO, CFA Institute), Russell Read (former CIO, CalPERS, GIC-Kuwait, and APFC) and Ajay Royan (Co-founder with Peter Thiel of Mithril VC Funds)
Look Inside the Trillion Dollar Club of Frontier Investors
"State-owned investment funds are the new frontier investors, larger in size, influence, and power than the traditional Wall Street of investment banks, asset managers, and hedge funds. They are the 'unicorn-makers' behind the scene. Offering a series of in-depth case studies that combine broad perspectives on the tech investment world with specific national examples, this highly original book examines a vital and increasingly important relationship between governments and globalizing VC tech markets."
--Anthony Scaramucci, Founder & Managing Partner of SkyBridge
"Ma and Downs" clear and expansive insights into these disproportionately important and yet little-known institutions will prove critical, both to practitioners in the field of investing as well as to the general public seeking answers to the big picture questions of why the new unicorns transforming their lives arose from the modern financial system."
--Russell Read, CFA, Ph.D, former CIO for CalPERS, GIC-Kuwait, and APFC
"The private sector doesn't have the answers to a growing list of the world's problems. It is the State, working through powerful institutions such as sovereign wealth funds, that has taken a key economic and investment role. Investors need to understand these state-controlled wealth funds - what they do and how they do it - and this book provides a timely update that fills a gap in the literature on global finance."
--Dato' Seri Cheah Cheng Hye, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Value Partners; Non-executive Director, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd
"Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) lie at the intersection of finance, politics, macroeconomics, and international relations. This book not only constitutes perhaps the most in-depth and insightful investigation of sovereign investors to date, but it starts a broader debate over globalization and state economic intervention in the context of world digital revolution. Invaluable to European governments and businesses, in particular, as the EU strives to become the third tech pillar of the world next to the US and China."
--Pierre-Yves Lucas, Head of Cooperation Mongolia, European Union; former Adviser to the CEO of the SWF of Kazakhstan
"A book that, against the backdrop of the world-altering coronavirus epidemic, provides a thoughtful guide to the role sovereign investors play in the world-changing digital transformation - and how one accelerates the other."
--Margaret Franklin, CFA, President and CEO, CFA Institute
"This is a story about Time Machines."
--Ajay Royan, Co-founder with Peter Thiel of Mithril VC Funds
WINSTON MA is an investor, attorney, author, and adjunct professor in the global digital economy. Most recently for 10 years, he was Managing Director and Head of North America Office for China Investment Corporation (CIC), China's sovereign wealth fund. Prior to that, Mr. Ma served as the deputy head of equity capital markets at Barclays Capital, a vice president at J.P. Morgan investment banking, and a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. He is the author of the best-selling books including Investing in China (2006) and China's Mobile Economy (2016). Winston was selected as a 2013 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and in 2014 he received the NYU Distinguished Alumni Award.
PAUL DOWNS practiced international law for more than four decades, most recently as a partner at Hogan Lovells in New York, where he co-founded the Sovereign Investor Practice and initiated its annual Sovereign Investor Conference. He has represented sovereign investors transacting in assets globally, has spoken and published on the topic and guest lectured at Columbia and New York University law schools. Mr. Downs served as President of the American Foreign Law Association.
