China CIC to manage more of its funds in house

BEIJING Feb 9 (Reuters) - China Investment Corp (CIC) [CIC.UL] will manage more of its investments in developed markets in house this year, the head of the $300 billion sovereign wealth fund said in remarks carried by official media on Tuesday.

Lou Jiwei, the chairman of CIC, said the fund would steadily accelerate its overseas investments in 2010, the China Securities Journal reported, citing an article he published on Monday. It did not say where the article appeared.

"As of now, most of CIC's overseas funds are managed by outside portfolio managers, but we will gradually increase in-house investment in more efficient developed markets in the future," the newspaper paraphrased Lou as saying.

His comments follow a regulatory filing last Friday by CIC with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission detailing some of its investments in the United States. here

CIC said in its Form 13F filing that it owned equity stakes in more than 60 U.S. companies worth $9.63 billion at the end of 2009, including small holdings in Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Citigroup (C.N), Coca Cola Co (KO.N) and News Corp (NWSA.O).

The list is not exhaustive. It includes CIC's stake in Morgan Stanley (MS.N) but not its holding in private equity house Blackstone (BX.N).

CIC's biggest listed stake, after its Morgan Stanley holding, is a $713.8 million investment in fund manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N)

CIC has been investing intensively in resources and commodities since 2009 mainly because there is still plenty of room for price gains in those sectors, Lou said, according to the China Securities Journal.

CIC also needed to hedge against the risk of inflation as the world economy picked up, he added.

Lou restated CIC's policy that the fund is a financial investor seeking to maximise its returns, not to control the companies in which it invests. (Reporting by Aileen Wang and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)