"We have a relation with Credit Suisse and we bought some of the stock from the market, actually, but I cannot say what percentage because still we are in the process," Bloomberg quoted Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani as saying. It did not give more details.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar has bought shares in Credit Suisse <CSGN.VX>, and plans to spend as much as $15 billion on European and U.S. bank stocks during the next 12 months, Bloomberg News reported, citing the Qatari prime minister.
"We have a relation with Credit Suisse and we bought some of the stock from the market, actually, but I cannot say what percentage because still we are in the process," Bloomberg quoted Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani as saying. It did not give more details.
A spokesman for Credit Suisse declined to comment on the report.
Sheikh Hamad is also head of the state's Qatar Investment Authority. John el-Khair, adviser at the QIA, could not immediately be reached for comment.
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The agency also quoted Sheikh Hamad as saying Qatar is creating $1 billion funds in Finland and Malaysia similar to the fund the Qatar Investment Authority announced in December that it was starting with Indonesia.
"We did this with some Europeans like Finland," he said. "We are doing a billion dollar fund with them. And we will do with Malaysia." The Malaysian fund "will be around a billion," he said.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hurst in Zurich)
(Writing by James Cordahi; Editing by Quentin Bryar, Paul Bolding)
