Kuwait's KIA says it will not save troubled US banks

The sovereign wealth fund will not rescue struggling US institutions but will soon go bargain hunting.

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KUWAIT// The Kuwait Investment Authority, the Gulf Arab state's sovereign wealth fund, said today it would not bail out struggling foreign banks, but was eyeing investment opportunities from the US financial crisis. "We are not responsible for saving foreign banks," Bader al Saad, the managing director of KIA told Al Arabiya Television. The KIA had made no losses from its investment in Merrill Lynch , which was taken over by Bank of America this month, but had lost $270 million (Dh991m) in Citigroup and had made up to $600 million from its investment in Visa , he said.

The KIA had already pumped more than 100 million dinars (Dh1.3bn) into the local stock market to shore up declining share prices, he said, adding that KIA's reposibilities were to the Kuwaiti economy. *Reuters