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Libya has invested in at least 35 countries on four continents.<\/b><\/span>\nBy Ken Sweet, contributing writer<\/span>March 2, 2011: 3:45 PM ET<\/span>
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — In the span of a few years, Libya’s financial tendrils have reached across oceans, across borders and across continents.<\/p>\n
The U.S., the U.K., Switzerland and the European Union recently moved to freeze billions of dollars<\/a> of Libyan assets, as the violence and chaos spread. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s tough to say just how much Moammar Gadhafi personally owns but there are some things we do know. <\/p>\n The assets are spread across at least 35 nations on four continents. It’s a bizarre mix of investments, ranging from luxury real estate and publishing companies in Britain, to hotels in the Middle East to a small stake in Italy’s Juventus football franchise. <\/p>\n Libya has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in poor and in some cases unstable African nations. The Libyan Foreign Bank even owns a stake in the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n All of that is on top of the billions of dollars Libya has socked away in the United States’ largest and most influential investment banks.<\/p>\n “Libya is just getting used to the fact they have a lot of cash on hand to invest,” said Ashby Monk, a research with Oxford University who specializes in sovereign wealth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Libya has always had large amounts of cash to throw around because of its massive reserves of high-quality crude oil. But when the United Nations lifted its economic sanctions in 2003, Libya created its own $60 billion sovereign wealth fund. Today, the Libyan Investment Authority ranks among the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. <\/p>\n The country also reorganized the Libyan Central Bank and the Libyan Foreign Bank to focus on domestic and African investments. <\/p>\n Here’s what CNNMoney was able to glean through public documents, sources familiar with Libya’s investments, and secret WikiLeaks documents.<\/p>\n North America: <\/b>The <\/b>LIA used U.S. banks and and the U.S. financial system primarily as a safe haven play to take stakes in mostly low-risk, short-term securities and cash equivalents.<\/p>\n Mohamed Layas, the head of the LIA, told U.S. authorities back in January 2010 that the country had “about $32 billion in liquidity” stored in U.S. banks at the time, according to a WikiLeaks cable. That’s roughly equivalent to the amount the U.S. Treasury Department had frozen earlier this week.<\/p>\n Also in January 2010, Layas said Libya had divied that $32 billion into chunks of $300 million to $500 million, currently managed by dozens of banks across the country.<\/p>\n Libya even invested more than $300 million into the now defunct Lehman Brothers, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings. The country is now fighting in the courts to recover those losses.<\/p>\n In Canada, Libya made one of its first private-equity deals by purchasing Verenex Energy for about $320 million in 2009. The deal was notable because Verenex was one of the first publicly-traded companies to drill for oil in Libya after the U.N. sanctions were lifted.<\/p>\n Europe and the U.K.: <\/b>Libya put the bulk of its cash to work in Europe and the U.K., partly because of its geographic proximity. The LIA also said it has a preference for investing in the U.K. because of its ‘relatively uncomplicated tax system,’ according to a WikiLeaks cable.<\/p>\n In Italy, Libya’s former colonial master, the LIA has stakes in Italian corporate names like oil giant Eni, defense contractor Finmeccanica and UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank. The LIA also has a 7.5% stake in Juventus.<\/p>\n In the U.K., the LIA owns a 3.3% stake in Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times<\/i> and Penguin Publishing. The fund also has stakes in several U.K. commercial real estate properties.<\/p>\n Libya also owns a portfolio of oil-related assets in Europe through the LIA, consisting of three oil refineries and approximately 3,000 gas stations across the continent, according to a 2008 speech given by Layas in London.<\/p>\n Since the violence broke out in Libya, Pearson froze Libya’s stake and dividend until further notice and Juventus said it was monitoring developments in the North African nation.<\/p>\n Africa:<\/b>: Through dozens of small investment banks scattered across Africa, Libya has taken stakes in dozens of small African telecom and infrastructure countries, including unstable nations such as Uganda and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n The investments in Africa play two roles, analysts said. Because Africa has struggled for years to get investors, Libya has become a key source of capital on the continent. Secondly, the investments in Africa have helped support Gadhafi’s long-time image of being the “father” of Africa.<\/p>\n “Gadhafi is providing support where there is none,” said Michael Maduell president of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. <\/p>\n — CNN supervising producer Adam Levine contributed to this report.<\/i>\u00a0 First Published: March 2, 2011: 3:27 PM ET<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/p>\n![\"To](\"http:\/\/i.cdn.turner.com\/money\/images\/bug.gif\")
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