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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The election contests of 2022 may have been held and decided, but Ohio’s political maps remain far from settled.
It was supposed to be a once-per-decade process for redrawing the state’s U.S. House and Statehouse districts, in order to reflect updated population figures from the 2020 Census. Now it promises to extend into 2023, and probably longer.
While most U.S. states managed to eventually settle their map disputes, Ohio’s protracted ordeal has trapped it in a uniquely confounding legal stalemate.
Here’s a look at how Ohio got here, and what may (or may not) come next:
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HOW DID THE NEW MAPMAKING PROCESS WORK?
This was the first time Ohio tried out new ways of drawing congressional and legislative maps.
In 2015, Ohio voters were looking to avoid partisan gerrymandering, and voted overwhelmingly to empower a new, bipartisan Ohio Redistricting Commission to draw Statehouse maps. Those are the districts of the state senators and representatives who voters send to Columbus.
Under the new rules, if both political parties said yes to the new boundaries, the maps would be in place for a full decade. Single-party support would result in a four-year map.
In 2018, another successful constitutional amendment was also wildly popular with voters. It set up a new system for drawing the state’s U.S. House districts — that is, the districts of the representatives that voters send to Washington.
The state Legislature would get the first crack at drawing the lines. If they failed, the commission would be next. If it failed, then the Legislature could try a final time. A three-fifths majority of the minority party — in this case, Democrats — would need to agree to the new map for it to be in place for 10 years. Barring that, again, it would last only four years.
As it turned out, the seeming incentives for bipartisan compromise failed and Democrats didn’t cast a single vote for any of the final maps, which were all Republican-drawn.
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WHAT POWER DID THE NEW SYSTEM GIVE THE STATE’S HIGH COURT?
Voters gave the Ohio Supreme Court “exclusive, original jurisdiction” to decide legal challenges, which included three lawsuits against the legislative maps and two lawsuits against the congressional map.
In a series of 4-3 votes, the court struck down every map they were sent. The court said the maps unduly benefited one party: Republicans. Those maps included two separate congressional maps — one approved by lawmakers in November 2021 and a second that cleared the redistricting commission in March 2022 — and five sets of Statehouse maps.
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YET OHIO’S ELECTIONS HAPPENED ANYWAY?
That’s right. Amid the legal clashes of the past year, courts allowed Ohio to go forward with May and August primaries under unconstitutional maps.
This fall, Republicans won 10 of Ohio’s 15 congressional seats under the disputed U.S. House map (although Democrats netted several notable wins ). The disputed Statehouse maps yielded even larger Republican supermajorities.
But the maps aren’t valid beyond this election cycle. They will need to be redrawn.
OK, SO THE MAPS DIDN’T FLY. WERE THERE CONSEQUENCES?
That’s the conundrum. Even as they missed deadlines and flouted court instructions, Republicans argued that they were doing all they could to understand and interpret a fledgling process. The court’s orders were unreasonable and conflicting, they said.
The voting-rights and Democratic groups that won seven consecutive rounds in court argued for lawmakers or commissioners to be held in contempt of court.
Ultimately, the justices balked. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor told The Associated Press in a year-end interview that she feared taking such action would create a constitutional crisis.
Importantly, the Ohio Supreme Court had no other enforcement options available to it. The new system neither allowed the court to impose a particular map — say, one favored by the suing parties or developed by experts — nor to draw their own.
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WHERE DO THOSE CASES STAND NOW?
Ohio’s congressional map dispute is now awaiting action in the U.S. Supreme Court, where Republican legislative leaders have appealed for a review of their loss in state court.
The case could be considered in conjunction with the closely watched Moore v. Harper case, whose oral arguments were held in December. That case seeks to resolve whether the U.S. Constitution’s provision giving state legislatures the power to make the rules about the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections means state courts can be cut out of the process.
If Ohio’s appeal is denied, Republican Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp has said lawmakers will then have 30 days to pass a new congressional map. But the high court’s decision isn’t expected for months.
Meanwhile, Ohio’s legislative maps expired with the November 2022 election — on orders of a federal court. The Ohio Redistricting Commission will have to come back together and make new, constitutionally compliant maps in time for 2024 elections. The state constitution says that process can’t begin before July 1 of this year. Lawsuits challenging Statehouse maps, which ended in a draw this summer, remain open.
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HAVE OHIO’S POLITIC DYNAMICS CHANGED?
Yes and no. The Ohio Redistricting Commission — made up of the governor, secretary of state, auditor and four lawmakers — remained 5-2 in Republicans’ favor after the November elections.
Cupp, a key player in the redistricting saga, is retiring, but his successor will also be Republican.
But the Ohio Supreme Court’s political leaning may have changed.
O’Connor, a Republican who was a key swing vote on the court, retired Saturday because of age limits. The ascension of her successor, GOP Justice Sharon Kennedy, left a court vacancy to which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has appointed Republican Joe Deters, the longtime Hamilton County prosecutor.
Time will tell whether Deters sides with the 7-member court’s other three Republican justices — unlike O’Connor — altering earlier case outcomes.
For her part, O’Connor has announced plans to pursue redistricting reforms in the Ohio Constitution, likely the type of independent commission she wrote about in one of her decisions. Many others are collaborating on similar efforts. The timing of any ballot campaign hasn’t been determined.
The British arm of the Extinction Rebellion environmental group said on Sunday it would take a break from acts of public disruption in order to bring more people on board its campaign for urgent action to counter climate change.
The grassroots group’s protests have previously included closing key roads and bridges in central London, blockading oil refineries, smashing windows at Barclays bank headquarters and spraying fake blood over the finance ministry building.
In a statement entitled “We quit”, Extinction Rebellion UK said that in the four years it has been taking direct action, very little had changed, with emissions continuing to rise.
“As we ring in the new year, we make a controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic,” the group said.
“What’s needed now most is to disrupt the abuse of power and imbalance, to bring about a transition to a fair society that works together to end the fossil fuel era. Our politicians, addicted to greed and bloated on profits, won’t do it without pressure.”
The group said it would focus on strengthening in number and bridge-building to increase its power and influence.
The government is in the process of passing a new law to make it harder for people to stage disruptive protests such as halting public transport networks or disrupting fuel supplies, giving the police greater powers to manage and prevent them.
Extinction Rebellion said it planned to surround the Houses of Parliament from April 21 with 100,000 people.
“This year, we prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore,” it said.
Kherson regional authorities have revealed the damage caused to Regional Children’s Medical center, as seven Russian projectiles struck it on the New Year’s eve.
The related photos were posted by Kherson Regional Armed forces Administration on Fb, an Ukrinform correspondent studies.
“This is what Kherson’s only hospital offering round-the-clock medical services for little ones appears to be like now,” the regional administration observed.
Russian troops fired about 7 projectiles at Kherson Regional Children’s Clinical Clinic. The neonatal department was very seriously ruined. Two intensive treatment units were being wrecked, and other health-related rooms found in the most important constructing ended up broken. About 700 windows ended up blown out.
Following Russia’s shelling, a fire broke out in a nurse’s area and medical center home.
The healthcare facility staff members evacuated 17 young children, 4 mom and dad and 38 health personnel to a bomb shelter. As a result, no casualties among the civilians had been noted.
Emergency services carry on to get rid of the aftermath of Russia’s assault.
A reminder that, on the evening of January 1, 2022, one particular civilian was killed and one particular injured in Russia’s shelling of the town of Kherson.
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The post Kherson regional authorities show Children’s Hospital after Russian attack appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried promised potential lenders returns of up to 20% as he sought to save his crypto empire from an earlier crisis in 2018, a report said.
The Wall Street Journal described problems at Alameda Research, the sister company to FTX, which it said stretched back years before its collapse in late 2022.
Citing anonymous sources, the outlet said Alameda was already struggling in 2018.
The crypto hedge fund needed rescuing after its algorithm for automated trading ran up losses on a series of inaccurate calls, The Journal said.
The issue, the report said, led Bankman-Fried to seek out additional loans to keep Alameda going.
Per The Journal, he promised annual returns as high as 20% in exchange for loans of cash or crypto, but offered few specifics.
Alameda continued operating past that crisis, and Bankman-Fried founded FTX in mid-2019.
Both spectacularly failed in late 2022 after losing billions, and legal action began against Bankman-Fried and others after accusations that FTX and Alameda had misused client funds.
Bankman-Fried is due in court on January 3 to answer federal charges linked to the collapse.
He is expected to made a plea deal after he was criminally charged on eight counts. They include fraud for allegedly using FTX funds to support the endeavors of Alameda, buy real estate, and fund millions of dollars in political contributions.
His victims were lenders and customers of FTX, according to prosecutors, who accuse him of securing the funds by deception.
His former associates have already struck plea deals.
Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to seven counts, while FTX cofounder Gary Wang pleaded guilty to four. They are both now cooperating with prosecutors.
FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 11 after it imploded, wiping out customer deposits worth billions. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO the same day.
Representatives for Bankman-Fried didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider, made outside normal working hours.
Andrii Yalanskyi/Getty Images
With the new year is another chance to make housing more affordable for all.
Right now, it’s harder than ever to buy a home. In 2022, an astronomical rise in mortgage rates coupled with already steep home prices pushed many out of the market altogether. Meanwhile, countless renters saw their monthly payments soar to the point of becoming rent-burdened — a situation where one is putting more than 30% of their household income towards housing expenses. Although rents and home prices started to trend downward in recent weeks, many American households remain cost burdened.
From modernizing zoning policy to make it easier for homebuilders to construct more housing — whether it’s traditional apartments or prefabricated homes — there are things that developers, mortgage lenders, and local governments can do in 2023 to ensure that more people have affordable access to a roof over their heads, according to the following six real estate experts Insider spoke to.
The solutions are not simple, experts say. There are many hurdles to overcome in conjunction with the political will to make housing more affordable throughout the country in years to come.
Here are five actions that experts say could ease the affordability crisis in 2023.
Local officials in San Ramon, California look over zoning maps
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images /Contributor
It all comes down to zoning, George Raitu, senior economist at Realtor.com, told Insider.
In fact, zoning in many places is about 60 years out of date, he said.
In order to make housing more affordable, Raitu explained, cities need to be zoned to allow housing to be built at a greater density further away from the city’s downtown.
Houston has been able to keep its housing affordable in large part because of just this, he said. More housing is built as a result and the supply keeps prices down. Still, there are other problems with that kind of building: a Princeton University study found that this sprawling development father away from the downtown area increased flooding during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. When planning new zoning laws, cities should be asking how do we increase total housing units while minimizing the negative impact on the city.
“It sounds old fashioned, but movement in the right direction would be a truly innovative task,” Raitu said.
Raitu is not alone in his thinking. Jeff Tucker, the chief economist at Zillow, also told Insider that the biggest hurdle to affordable housing was “zoning reform.”
It’s a mission that is taking off in California. This year, several new housing laws were introduced to the state’s legislature as a means to alleviate its housing crisis.
The two most significant housing bills, titled SB 6 and AB 2011, were signed into law in September and permit home construction on what had previously been classified as non-residential lots. This means that homes can be built in places that were previously reserved for commercial uses like retail and offices.
Critics of the bills are concerned that the law may lead to lower levels of commercial property tax income for local governments, however, supporters hope rezoning will eventually bolster the state’s affordable housing supply.
andykazie/Getty Images
Before even putting a shovel in the ground, the current cost of building a home is about $100,000 in material and labor, according to a Fannie Mae report. These high costs trickle down to the consumer, ATTOM’s Rick Sharga said, because it’s impossible to make a profit without pricing a new home out of reach for typical households in the US.
For this reason, local governments need to step in, and offer deals that incentivize development, he explained. This would be a situation “where the government actually helps me to offset costs and contributes to a certain extent,” Sharga added.
In Philadelphia and Chicago, local governments have been operating programs that sell long-vacant publicly-owned land to individual homeowners and private developers for as little as $1 to help spur new construction and to get the parcels back on tax rolls.
But local governments can also offer tax breaks or actively contribute to the cost of building in exchange for a chunk of equity in the project. California has already done this when its citizens voted to pass Proposition 46, which provides funding specifically for affordable housing. It allocated just shy of $1 billion to the multifamily sector, according to CCIM, and is expected to see $13 billion in private funds be pushed into affordable housing. The aim is to add up to 134,000 places to live by 2027.
Local government leaders should prioritize building housing for the typical family, rather than the ultra-wealthy, Jonathan Miller said.
MoMo Productions/Getty Images
Local lawmakers also need to craft policies that incentivizes equitable distribution of luxury, market rate, and workforce housing in cities like New York, according to housing expert and appraiser Jonathan Miller.
New York City, home to some of the most unaffordable zip codes in the US, is a perfect case study of what happens when this is not in place.
There are too many ultra luxury units geared towards billionaires but not nearly enough housing for the typical worker in the city of nearly 8.5 million people, Miller said. Because of this, many of those that live and work in the city simply can’t find an affordable place to live because there is a dearth of homes created for this price range.
But, Miller admits, it’s a “Catch-22.”
“The thing that you have to couch all that with is that the city doesn’t have the money to subsidize,” he said. So instead, the city needs to zone to incentivize building in certain areas, so that real estate can continue to be profitable while striving to be affordable.
Eliminating some barriers to accessing financing for prefabricated homes could alleviate the crisis.
Louise Beaumont/Getty Images
Tiny and prefabricated homes have been having a moment in the last few years. These minimalist, typically under 500-square-foot dwellings, can cost as little as $10,000 to buy — a far cry from the typical home prices that hit over $400,000 this year.
There are numerous draws to these types of homes with their small footprint, largely due to their affordability and flexibility they offer.
But unfortunately, because securing a mortgage on these properties is difficult, they are still out of reach for many — lenders require higher credit scores than a mortgage on a conventional home would, and they are more likely to lend money to companies that then lease out the homes, instead of directly to the person living it the home, according to a study the Pew Research Center released this month.
Indeed, nearly 54% of those surveyed said they were flat out denied a mortgage for a manufactured home, the study found. Experts say that breaking down those barriers could be one way to quell the affordability crisis.
“These aren’t your grandfather’s mobile homes. In a lot of cases they’re really nice properties,” Sharga said. “The mortgage industry really needs to take a look at how to make that kind of financing more widely available.”
In July, Ginnie Mae, a federally-backed mortgage provider, specifically focused on affordable housing, requested that a manufactured home mortgage program be extended.
Encouraging homeowners to refurbish their homes could take some strain off the market.
James Osmond/Getty Images
Denise Scott, president of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national nonprofit organization, told Insider that persevering the nation’s existing housing stock is an important step in boosting its supply of affordable homes.
“We are looking at preservation as a part of an innovative strategy given market conditions and the fact is that it’s hard to build more homes,” Scott said. Indeed, higher mortgage rates and supply strain constraints have deterred home builders from constructing many homes in 2022 — this has only exacerbated the nation’s affordable housing crisis.
With home construction slowing and home prices still rising — albeit at a slower pace of growth — Scott suggests that local governments introduce more home repair programs to help citizens “recapitalize their homes.”
“LISC is particularly interested in this strategy as it connects to BIPOC homeowners,” Scott said. “The idea here is to use a blend of government and private dollars to provide very low or zero-interest loans to help these families recapitalize their homes and bring them up to standard.”
This method could lead to more families owning the title of their homes, making it easier for them to eventually pass on the property to a family or community member. This could eliminate participation from developers or brokers who could purchase the property and later sell it or re-market it as costly rental units.
Andriy Nebytov, via Facebook
Russia sent an exploding drone inscribed with “Happy New Year” as part of a barrage of strikes to mark the new year, according to an official.
Andriy Nebytov, the chief of police in the capital Kyiv, posted images of the drone on Facebook after attacks across Ukraine on New Year’s Eve and in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
The images show “Happy New Year” written in Russian on part of the wreckage. It also features crude drawings of a gift, and a bauble labelled “boom.”
The drone was marked as a Geran-2, the Russian name for the Shahed-136 drones which it acquires from Iran and has been launching at Ukraine in vast numbers.
A zoomed-out image of the wreckage.
Andriy Nebytov, via Facebook
Ukrainian officials said they shot down 45 of these drones on the night of December 31, including 32 over Kyiv.
Nebytov said the drone in the photos landed in a children’s playground. He did not say whether it was shot down or landed there itself.
“This is all you need to know about the terrorist state and its army,” Nebytov wrote of the message on the drone.
The strikes across Ukraine on New Year’s Eve also included at least 20 cruise missiles, officials said. These killed one person and injured 20 more in what one Ukrainian official described as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.
A file photo showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy standing over the wreckage of a Shahed-136 drone earlier in 2022.
Screenshot/President of Ukraine official website
It followed major bombardments in recent days, including Russia firing more than 120 missiles across Ukraine on December 29, its biggest wave of attacks in recent months, according to a Ukrainian official.
Russia said the latest strikes targeted locations involved in the manufacture of drones, with the aim of limiting attacks on Russia.
Ukraine has repeatedly said that Russia rarely hits military targets, and mostly harms ordinary people and civilian infrastructure.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump invited journalists to a surprise slot of “media availability” at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on New Year’s Eve.
But in a likely blow to Trump’s ego, not a single cable news network covered it, according to Raw Story.
Notably, the media outlet said that even Fox News and Newsmax, which have historically offered sympathetic coverage of the former president, skipped on covering his remarks.
On Saturday, MSNBC host Alex Witt announced that the former president would host a surprise New Year’s Eve “media availability” slot at approximately 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
New York Times journalist Peter Baker, who was appearing on MSNBC, said he did not know what it would involve, but added that he suspected it could be a “gimmick” to “get attention in a positive way,” per Raw Story.
At 9.00 p.m., Trump and former first lady Melania Trump appeared in front of reporters. But for the first minute of his remarks, which lasted approximately two minutes in total, the audio was barely audible.
A video of the “media availability” slot, which was covered by the fringe conservative media outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), shows that Trump spoke about the FBI, his 2024 presidential campaign, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump had complained about cable news networks in a Truth Social post, notably criticizing Fox News.
“Fox News Ratings are also way down because they never say ‘Trump’ or TRUTH, never talk about the Rigged Presidential Election, and is a Fake Polling Network,” he wrote.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A powerful storm brought drenching rain or heavy snowfall to much of California on Saturday, snarling traffic and closing highways as the state prepared to usher in a new year.
In the high Sierra Nevada, as much as 2 feet of snow could accumulate into early Sunday. The National Weather Service in Sacramento warned about hazardous driving conditions and posted photos on Twitter showing traffic on snow-covered mountain passes, where vehicles were required to have chains or four-wheel drive.
The so-called atmospheric river storm was pulling in a long and wide plume of moisture from the Pacific Ocean. Flooding and rock slides closed portions of roads across Northern California.
A Sacramento Municipal Utility District online map showed more than 153,000 customers were affected by power outages on Saturday. “SMUD crews are responding to outages across the region during this powerful winter storm,” the utility said in a Twitter message, adding that it was preparing additional resources while working to restore power.
“Too many road closures to count at this point,” the weather agency in Sacramento said in an afternoon tweet. Sacramento County urged residents in the unincorporated community of Wilton to evacuate, warning that flooded roadways could “cut off access to leave the area.”
Rainfall in downtown San Francisco on Saturday topped 5 inches at midafternoon, making it the second-wettest day on record, behind a November 1994 deluge. With rain continuing to fall, it could threaten the nearly three-decade old record.
The California Highway Patrol said a section of U.S. 101 — one of the state’s main traffic arteries — was closed indefinitely south of San Francisco because of flooding. Videos on Twitter showed mud-colored water streaming along San Francisco streets, and a staircase in Oakland turned into a veritable waterfall by heavy rains.
Weather service meteorologist Courtney Carpenter said the storm could drop over an inch of rain in the Sacramento area before moving south. One ski resort south of Lake Tahoe closed chair lifts because of flooding and operational problems, and posted a photo on Twitter showing one lift tower and its empty chairs surrounded by water.
“We’re seeing a lot of flooding,” Carpenter said.
The Sacramento agency released a map of 24-hour precipitation through Saturday morning, showing a wide range of totals in the region, from less than an inch in some areas to more than 5 inches in the Sierra foothills.
The Mammoth Mountain Ski Area reported numerous lift closings, citing high winds, low visibility and ice.
The Stockton Police Department posted photos of a flooded railroad underpass and a car that appeared stalled in more than a foot of water.
The rain was welcomed in drought-parched California, but much more precipitation is needed to make a significant difference. The past three years have been California’s driest on record.
A winter storm warning was in effect into Sunday for the upper elevations of the Sierra from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Lake Tahoe, where as much as 5 feet of snow is possible atop the mountains, the National Weather Service said in Reno, Nevada.
A flood watch was in effect across much of Northern California through New Year’s Eve. Officials warned that rivers and streams could overflow and urged residents to get sandbags ready.
Some rainfall totals in the San Francisco Bay Area topped 4 inches.
The state transportation agency reported numerous road closures, including Highway 70 east of Chico, which was partially closed by a slide, and the northbound side of Highway 49, east of Sacramento, which was closed because of flooding. In El Dorado County, east of Sacramento, a stretch of Highway 50 was closed because of flooding.
Humboldt County, where a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Dec. 20, also saw roadways begin to flood, according to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office. A bridge that was temporarily closed last week due to earthquake damage may be closed again if the Eel River, which it crosses, gets too high, officials said.
It was the first of several storms expected to roll across California over the next week. The current system is expected to be warmer and wetter, while next week’s storms will be colder, said Hannah Chandler-Cooley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
The Sacramento region could receive a total of 4 to 5 inches of rain over the span of the week, Chandler-Cooley said.
“Strong winds could cause tree damage and lead to power outages and high waves on Lake Tahoe may capsize small vessels,” the weather service in Reno said.
Avalanche warnings were issued in the backcountry around Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes south of Yosemite.
On the Sierra’s eastern front, flood watches and warnings were issued into the weekend north and south of Reno, Nevada, where minor to moderate flooding was forecast along some rivers and streams.
In Southern California, moderate-to-heavy rain was falling Saturday. The region will begin drying out on New Year’s Day, with no rainfall expected during Monday’s Rose Parade in Pasadena.
Another round of heavy showers was forecast for Tuesday or Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Oxnard said.
© Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Heavy falls in stock and bond markets over the last year have cut the combined value of the world’s sovereign wealth and public pension funds for the first time ever – and to the tune of $2.2 trillion, an annual study of the sector has estimated.
The report on state-owned investment vehicles by industry specialist Global SWF found that the value of assets managed by sovereign wealth funds fell to $10.6 trillion from $11.5 trillion, while those of public pension funds dropped to $20.8 trillion from $22.1 trillion.
Global SWF’s Diego López said the main driver had been the “simultaneous and significant” 10%-plus corrections suffered by major bond and stock markets, a combination that had not happened in 50 years.
It came as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine boosted commodity prices and drove already-rising inflation rates to 40-year highs. In response, the U.S. Federal reserve and other major central banks jacked up their interest rates causing a global market sell-off.
“These are paper losses and some of the funds will not see them realized in their role as long-term investors,” López said. “But it is quite telling of the moment we are living.”
The report, which analysed 455 state-owned investors with a combined $32 trillion in assets, found that Denmark’s ATP had had the toughest year anywhere with an estimated 45% plunge that lost $34 billion for Danish pensioners.
Despite all the turbulence though, the money funds spent buying up companies, property or infrastructure still jumped 12% compared with 2021.
A record $257.5 billion was deployed across 743 deals, with sovereign wealth funds also sealing a record number of $1 billion-plus “mega-deals”.
Singapore’s supersized $690 billion GIC fund topped the table, spending just over $39 billion in 72 deals. Over half of that was piled into real estate with a clear bias towards logistics properties.
In fact, five of the 10 largest investments ever by state-owned investors took place in 2022, starting in January when another Singapore vehicle, Temasek, spent $7 billion buying testing, inspection and certification firm Element Materials from private equity fund Bridgepoint.
In March, Canada’s BCI then agreed to acquire 60% of Britain’s National Grid Gas Transmission and Metering arm with Macquarie. Two months later, Italy’s CDP Equity wealth fund spent $4.4 billion on Autostrade per l’Italia alongside Blackstone and Macquarie.
“If financial markets continue to fall in 2023, it is likely that sovereign funds will keep ‘chasing elephants’ as an effective way of meeting their capital allocation requirements,” the report said.
It tipped SWFs from the Gulf such as ADIA, Mubadala, ADQ, PIF, QIA to become much more active in buying up Western firms having received large injections of oil revenue money over the past year.
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