Dubai International Capital (DIC) plans to buy stakes in large Asian listed companies such as Singapore Telecommunications and DBS Group Holdings, a Singapore newspaper reported.

DIC's chief operating officer, Anand Krishnan, told the Business Times (BT) that the sovereign wealth fund, owned by the ruler of Dubai, wants to diversify its investments into Asia through its $2 billion Global Strategic Equities Fund.

Krishnan said DIC had invited 14 of Asia's biggest multinationals to a conference, to be held on Dec 3 and 4 in Dubai, to meet Arab investors representing the top 100 institutional and private investors from the GCC.

The companies invited were SingTel, Southeast Asia's largest telecoms company, and Singapore's DBS Group, the region's top lender; ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies, DLF and Bharti Airtel from India; and Hong Leong Financial Group from Malaysia.

Daiwa Securities Group and Sony from Japan; the Korea Electric Power, Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor from South Korea; and the Aluminum Corporation of China and CITIC from China, the newspaper said.

It said DIC since 2005 had invested mostly in European companies, taking substantial stakes in HSBC Holdings, DaimlerChrysler and a 3.12 per cent stake in European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company or EADS which is the parent company of Airbus.

'With all that's happening, there's a need to diversify investments,' Krishnan told the newspaper.

Krishnan said that the Global Strategic Equities Fund as a leveraged fund can make investments of up to $10 billion, and DIC to date had US$12 billion of assets under management.Reuters