China’s sovereign wealth fund has sold its 9.9% stake in US investment firm Blackstone, the Financial Times reports, an asset it has held since the company’s listing in 2007.
The sell-off comes during a time of escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, although one senior official at the fund said that the stake was “offloaded very gradually and mostly before Trump.”
The original acquisition was made by the Chinese government shortly before the fund, also known as China Investment Corp. (CIC), was launched. CIC managed $813 billion of assets as of 2016, with overseas assets generating a net 6.22% return in the same year.