With Italian Fund, Qatar Again Aids Europe

Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy, left, met with Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar and a member of that country's royal family. Osama Faisal/Associated PressPrime Minister Mario Monti of Italy, left, met with Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar and a member of that country’s royal family.

The cash-rich nation of Qatar again sees opportunity in helping revive the European economy.

Qatar said on Monday that it had teamed up with Italy to create a fund of up to 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion), called IQ Made in Italy Venture, to invest in Italian companies.

The fund is Qatar’s most recent foray into helping the struggling European economy. As the global market turmoil deepened in 2008, Qatar came to the aid of Barclays, paying £2 billion ($3.2 billion) to help recapitalize the British bank.

Many nations in the Persian Gulf became active investors in Europe beginning in 2007, seeking to put their petrodollars to work at attractive prices. But Qatar has stood out for the amount of money it has poured into the Continent and the variety of industries in which that it has taken stakes.

Last year, Qatar helped support the merger of Greece’s Alpha Bank and Eurobank into a more stable firm. It also invested in power companies, including Energias de Portugal and Iberdrola.

The Qatar National Bank also sought a takeover of the Turkish arm of Dexia, a troubled French-Belgian bank, though the talks eventually stalled. Qatari investors did manage to strike an agreement to buy Dexia’s Luxembourg-based private bank for an unspecified amount.

And a firm backed by Qatar agreed to buy an arm of the KBC Group of Belgium for $1.4 billion, giving KBC additional capital to support its troubled balance sheet.

Qatar funds and royal family members also bought into soccer teams, taking stakes in the Málaga Football Club and Paris Saint-Germain.