By Lian Cheng
Sarawakians can be assured that Sarawak Sovereign Wealth Future Fund (SSWFF) is in good hands, ready for a long journey of disciplined investment, prudent risk management, sustainable returns and long-term wealth creation.
Helming the Fund since January 29, 2024, Abang Rahmat, brought with him two decades of extensive leadership experience in investment banking, corporate fundraising, and sovereign wealth management. He was the former head of Investment Banking (Malaysia) at CLSA Securities (2019-2024) and Director of Investments at Khazanah Nasional Board (2004-2019), where he spent 15 years with Malaysia’s strategic sovereign wealth fund.
During his tenure, he established and managed the Khazanah Turkey Regional Office in Istanbul, which directed investments across Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, and acted as the overseeing director for the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) which at the time comprised roughly 20 per cent of Khazanah’s entire portfolio.
On September 4, 2026, DayakDaily sat down with Abang Rahmat to discuss the establishment of SSWFF, its underlying mandate, its organisational structure, and its performance outlook.
Q: Let’s start with an introduction to SSWFF—how this Fund came to be and what is its objective?
If you look at where the State is under the current administration and leadership, it’s about building institutions. A country or a State, if I may, is judged by its institutions and their strengths. PETROS (Petroleum Sarawak Berhad), DBOS (Development Bank of Sarawak), the acquisition of AirBorneo, a controlling stake in Affin Bank, and the setting up of SSWFF are all part of this broader effort to build strong and enduring institutions.
Sarawak had thought deeply about the natural resources with which the State is richly endowed.
Understandably, these natural resources are not unlimited, and it is important that the State secures its future by having an intergenerational savings fund with the government as the sole beneficiary. I think the combination of the State’s desire to build institutions and its commitment to saving for the future, with full knowledge that revenues from natural resources are finite—that combination, along with a very forward-thinking, visionary leadership, led to the setting up of SSWFF.
To safeguard the Fund, the Sarawak Government first enacted the SSWFFB 2022 legislation in November 2022 not only to provide the legal framework for its establishment but also to set out the terms and mechanisms governing its administration. These include the establishment of a Board of Guardians, which came on board in September 2023, comprising professionals with diverse areas of expertise. If you look at our Investment Advisory Panel, we also have individuals with incredible backgrounds and credentials. They have led and managed global MNCs (multinational corporations) and major companies, all of which operate with very strong governance frameworks. They are highly respected figures in the world of sovereign wealth funds and investments and for them to want to be part of our mission is a strong signal of the credibility of what we are building.
One of the most important things for us as we embark on this journey is to build public trust. When you have legislation to support the formation of a fund, it’s a good start by way of governance. Ultimately, we have been entrusted with the responsibility to protect and grow the wealth of Sarawak within the mandate established by the Ordinance.
Q: So what makes SSWFF different from other investment funds? And how can that difference be reflected in the way it invests and operates?
SSWFF is an intergenerational savings fund which means our purpose is to receive surplus or reserves from the State for us to manage, protect, and grow. Given that a significant portion of Sarawak’s reserves come from its natural resources, SSWFF essentially aims to convert that wealth into a growing pool of financial assets that will generate returns over time.
There are many models the State can adopt when it comes to managing and growing public wealth. Some funds, like Khazanah at the federal level have a strategic investment mandate. They invest domestically in infrastructure and industry that is intended to drive national development. Others, like EPF- a retirement fund, PNB – a unit trust manager have account holders that can receive direct dividends.
For SSWFF, we are a savings fund for the State and there is only one beneficiary, which is the State, who is also the “sole account holder”. Our mandate is more focused on financial returns. We are to invest in financial markets, whether it is bonds and equities, and grow Sarawak’s wealth through very disciplined investments and participation in capital markets.
If a sovereign wealth fund is defined as an institution owned by the government that makes investments in foreign financial assets for financial objectives, then there are only two sovereign wealth funds in Malaysia that fit this description—which is the National Trust Fund (NTF), and SSWFF. Globally, there are also the likes of GIC (Government of Singapore Investment Corporation) in Singapore, NBIM (Norges Bank Investment Management of Norway) in Norway, wealth funds in Australia; and huge sovereign wealth funds from China. Like them, every year, we get injections from the State and invest for the State.
Q: SSWFF is established to safeguard wealth for future generations of Sarawak. How do you balance a long-term mandate of capital preservation across decades with short-term liquidity or local economic, even global economic pressures?
Our objective and our mandate will guide us in terms of how we address or try to balance long-term investments across decades. We have a long-term horizon—let’s call it 20 years. And that long-term view is what guides us as an investor in terms of how we handle these risks.
For the Board and Management, we are acutely aware of short-term fluctuations that happen in the markets. Though we are always monitoring any developments, we don’t necessarily have to react as our investment portfolio was designed to be robust and get us through these volatile times. Therefore, we must remain disciplined in executing our investment strategies and staying true to our investment beliefs and principles.
It is equally important to speak to the State’s perspective here. As the sole investor in this Fund, the State is also a long-term investor and when the State appropriates capital into SSWFF, it is making a generational commitment—not a short-term placement. And we should not be unduly concerned by short-term market fluctuations or periods of lower returns. These are a normal and inevitable part of any long-term investment journey. What matters is not what the portfolio looks like in any given quarter, but what it looks like in 10, 15, or 20 years’ time. Collectively we need to stay the course and trust in the mandate and the framework that has been put in place.
But being a long-term investor doesn’t mean being passive at all. We have an outsourcing model in terms of investing where we engage external fund managers to optimise the execution of our investment strategies. These managers are selected through a meticulous and rigorous screening process. The fund managers (six of them) are far more advanced and mature in terms of their set-ups, where they have established processes and systems to invest. There is daily monitoring and working with our fund managers closely—a very key part of what we do to ensure that our assets are managed in alignment with our investment mandate.
Q: Given current global macroeconomic concerns—particularly surrounding unprecedented high United States (US) federal debt burdens, and potential systemic tail risks—how is SSWFF structuring its strategic asset allocation to ensure capital preservation and weather a severe global market downturn should it happens?
We’re cognisant of existing megatrends, but these are short-term. The Board has sat together many times to discuss potential regime changes and what we’re going to do about it: as we are aware of the ongoing wars and conflicts across the globe—and yet markets have continued to function and recover. Our conclusion is that we cannot be reacting to these volatilities and fluctuations every time because the recovery period for markets between conflicts is getting shorter and shorter.
Our strategic asset allocation is structured to minimise portfolio risk while still generating meaningful returns. We are mindful that generating returns means taking on some degree of risk, but we are not going to take excessive or unnecessary risk, particularly at this stage of the Fund’s development. That balance is deliberately reflected in how our portfolio is currently constructed—the significant majority of our assets are in fixed income, which is consistent with our capital preservation objective while still allowing the Fund to generate steady returns.
There are many factors affecting the portfolio. Our long-term strategy is designed to withstand short-term fluctuations, and at the same time, take into account the long-term trends. The strategy is designed to be effective for the Fund today and also in 10 years. Of course, we will continuously review and refresh our strategy to assess whether emerging megatrends are coming into play, and where appropriate, take a position accordingly.
As a long-term investor, we are cognisant of and alert to potential megatrends. However, you don’t know that a megatrend is truly a megatrend until it happens. Reacting to every potential megatrend is simply not what long-term investors do.
Q: Some central banks, including those in China, Japan, and Singapore seem to be reducing their exposure to US Treasuries while increasing their allocations in gold. What is your take on this, and as a long-term investor, will SSWFF invest in gold?
SSWFF’s statutory framework places emphasis on safeguarding the Fund and securing sustainable income and returns for the State and future generations. The Ordinance emphasises conversion and diversification of revenues derived from Sarawak’s finite natural resources into long-term financial assets, rather than direct investment in natural-resource activities. Gold is a commodity.
In a very broad sense of the term, commodities come under the natural resources bucket. Gold is a fantastic asset. It’s a long-term asset, but it’s behaving like a tech stock, and ultimately, it is still a commodity. Given how the Fund is structured, we do not invest directly in commodities because our role is to diversify the State’s wealth and hedge against fluctuations in commodity prices. Since the State owns significant natural resources, investing in gold would add to that exposure rather than provide meaningful diversification.
Q: How do you define SSWFF’s mandate across domestic versus international allocations?
As much as 80 per cent is global and 20 per cent domestic, which is Malaysia. And that 20 per cent is in fixed income. This allocation approach is guided by our investment mandate, which includes hedging the Fund’s invested assets against key financial risks faced by Sarawak and Malaysia.
Q: How do you structure decision-making between the Board of Guardians, management, and government stakeholders to maintain strict operational independence?
Our overriding governance is the Ordinance (SSWFFB 2022). The Board of Guardians are the custodians of the Fund, and they have the ultimate responsibility in terms of the management, administration and investment decisions. Management oversees the day-to-day activities, including effectively selecting the right blend of fund managers to achieve the Fund’s objectives and mandate of the Fund, and monitoring their performance throughout their appointments.
The Ordinance clearly delineates the State’s influence. For example, the State cannot instruct the Fund to invest in any particular asset. What is particularly significant is that this was a deliberate and conscious choice by the State’s leadership. It takes real foresight and conviction for a government to voluntarily write into law a provision that limits its own influence over a fund it created and funds. The Ordinance is designed to insulate the Fund from political interference to allow decisions to be made based on sound financial judgement, not political considerations. We have seen many recent examples elsewhere where political interference is just disastrous.
We are a savings fund and perhaps that might sound a bit boring but sometimes boring work needs to be done first to allow us to do more exciting stuff in the future. So right now, we are focused on getting our heads down and working hard to grow the State’s wealth, so that one day in the next 20 years or so, the State can deploy it towards various initiatives, for example in education, living standards and human capital development that will genuinely improve the lives of Sarawakians.
This approach is very much as what the Ordinance sets out for us – that the Fund’s initial investment allocation should target capital preservation during the first five years. This gives us the time to establish the Fund properly, build the right foundations, select the right EFMs and be careful and measured in how we deploy the State’s capital at the outset. The idea is to get the foundations right first and over time, move towards a more growth-oriented approach as the Fund matures. We believe this strategy will strengthen the Fund and give us greater ability to diversify our portfolio over time.
A savings fund isn’t meant to take unnecessary risks or make speculative bets. We want to stay measured and disciplined, and that is the nature and culture of our investment approach.
Q: How is the application of SSWFF to be a member of International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) thus far?
We were officially accepted and were admitted to the IFSWF in the middle of last year. When we attended the conference in November, there was an announcement on our admission by the CEO of the IFSWF (Duncan Bonfield) in front of all these other large, more established sovereign wealth funds. We were described as “a model of implementation”. I think what the CEO was alluding to was the fact that we passed legislation to establish the Fund. It was not simply a matter of registering a company with SSM (Companies Commission of Malaysia); we tabled the bill in the Sarawak Assembly, debated it, and passed it into law.
The admission is a validation and recognition of the work that the State did in leading up to the establishment of the Fund. Ultimately, one of the goals of applying as a member is to build a globally recognised institution. To be a member is a step towards that end.
Q: What benefits can we draw from being a member?
The network of other sovereign wealth funds and peers is a huge benefit to the Fund. Many of these institutions are far larger and more established than we are. They have been through different market cycles and economic crises, and they are very open about sharing their experiences and knowledge.
You can ask questions like, “What were you doing in your third year?” or “What pitfalls did you encounter?” It creates a great environment for learning. It is also important for building credibility. As I mentioned, there are many highly established funds participating in the forum, and being part of that network is one of the ways we validate the work we are doing, the structure we have put in place, and the mission we are pursuing.
Q: How has the Fund progressed so far?
We are still in the early days of the Fund and have only recently started deploying capital. At this stage, we use a time-weighted rate of return as our primary performance measure—in simple terms, this measures the growth of our investments independent of the timing and size of capital flows into the Fund, which makes it the most accurate and internationally recognised way to assess investment performance at this stage of our development. On that basis, our return is currently around 3.5 per cent. We are a long-term investor and as such, our performance should be assessed over a much longer period, say, seven years, and ultimately by looking at the compounded rate of return over that period.
There is naturally a lot of interest in how much the Fund has made so far, but we have only just started. The State, in its wisdom, recognised this when it established the objectives under the Ordinance: the first few years are fundamentally about capital preservation. You cannot expect to maximise returns immediately without taking on excessive risk, particularly when building a long-term savings fund from the ground up. While our objective is to maximise returns, we focus strictly on risk-adjusted returns.
Q: So how do you see the Fund in 2030 by which time SSWFF will be six years in operation?
Rather than giving you a number, I would say that we will continue to maximise returns while staying true to our long-term strategy. We are long-term investors, and that means we must be prepared to stomach periods of negative returns. The largest and most mature sovereign wealth funds have all experienced down years over their 20-year or longer histories. No one is spared from market cycles. In fact, if a fund were to report positive returns every single year for 20 years, I would probably question that, because I don’t think that has ever been achieved.
We are now in our third year and, so far, so good though this is certainly a challenging market environment. Moving forward, our approach remains the same: we stay disciplined, stick to the plan, and remain focused on our long-term objectives.
Q: Is there anything that you would like to tell the Sarawakians?
We deeply value the trust that the State and the people of Sarawak have placed in the Board and the Fund. We are working hard to fulfil the mandate entrusted to us by the State, which is to protect and grow Sarawak’s wealth for the benefit of future generations. We are very conscious of that responsibility and deeply appreciative of the trust that has been given to us.
Trust is something that has to be earned and built over time. We are long-term investors, and we are here for the long term. We want to use that time to consistently demonstrate transparency, discipline and good governance, and in doing so, continue to earn and strengthen that trust. Ultimately, once we have that foundation of trust, we can build the Fund’s assets and generate sustainable returns over the long term. At the end of the day, what we are really doing is making sure that the next generation of Sarawakians—our children and grandchildren—inherit not just the land and its resources, but the financial means to build something even greater with it. — DayakDaily
