DOHA (Bloomberg) — Qatar is accumulating shares in Credit Suisse Group and plans to spend as much as $15 billion on European and US bank stocks over the next year, the Gulf state's prime minister said in an interview.

"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," Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim bin Jaber al-Thani, who is also chief executive officer of the Qatar Investment Authority, said in an interview in Doha.

Persian Gulf sovereign wealth funds, whose coffers are swelling from near-record oil prices, and counterparts in Asia have been snapping up stakes in banks battered by US sub-prime mortgage losses. Citigroup Inc. received $14.5 billion from investors including Singapore and Kuwait since mid-December.

"Sub-prime losses are clearly not confined to US banks and European banks are seeking funding," Giyas Gokkent, head of research at National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC, said in a phone interview yesterday. "Gulf funds have surpluses to spend and are looking for long-term appreciation. If investments help develop their domestic financial markets too, so much the better."

Bruno Daher, Credit Suisse's Dubai-based co-CEO for the Middle East, declined to comment when contacted on his mobile phone today, as did Zurich-based spokesman Marc Dosch. Credit Suisse jumped 1.55 Swiss francs, or 2.8 percent, to 56.55 francs ($51.61) at 9:31 a.m. in Swiss trading.

Credit Suisse said on February 12 that fourth-quarter profit fell 72 percent after 1.3 billion francs of write-downs on debt and leveraged loans. The stock has fallen 31 percent since October 10. Brady Dougan, CEO of Switzerland's second-biggest bank, scaled back risky investments before the debt-market slump that forced UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest bank, to report $14 billion in write-downs.

Sovereign wealth funds in the past six months made investments in Citigroup, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and UBS. Wall Street banks have raised at least $59 billion, mostly from investors in the Middle East and Asia. Citigroup alone was propped up in November by a $7.5 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the world's richest sovereign fund, after losing almost half its market value.