The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund hits a new high in value.
For the first time in its nearly three-decade history, the Norwegian Oil Fund, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, has just surpassed the market value of 18,000 billion Norwegian kroner, equivalent to 1,691,000 billion dollars as of Wednesday. The Norwegian pensioner smiles.
The Global Government Pension Fund , as the Norwegian fund is officially known, was created in the 1990s and the Government began transferring revenues from the Norwegian oil and gas industry into the fund in 1996.
Since then, the fund has invested in equities and fixed income globally, increasing its value with returns. However, here is the graph that shows the development:
In October 2019, the fund's value exceeded NOK 10 trillion , and in May 2023, the fund's market value surpassed the NOK 15 trillion mark.
The weakness of the Norwegian krone against the US dollar has contributed somewhat to the new height of the fund's value, but it is equity investments in the US stock market, in which the fund is heavily weighted, that have driven the record value, he said Handelsbanken analyst Nils Kristian Knudsen at Norwegian outlet FinansWatch .
For the first quarter of 2024, the fund returned 1.21 trillion kroner ($113 billion), the highest quarterly return in absolute terms since the fund was created in 1996.
“Our equity investments had a very strong return in the first quarter, particularly thanks to the technology sector,” Trond Grande, Deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, said in April, commenting on the fund's performance in the first quarter.
The Norwegian fund owns on average 1.5% of all publicly traded companies globally . Equity investments – which represent 72.1% of the fund's total investments – consist of shares owned by approximately 9,000 companies worldwide. A total of 26% of the fund's assets are invested in fixed income, 1.8% in unlisted real estate and 0.1% in renewable energy infrastructure.
The fund, which is commonly referred to as 'Norway's oil fund' because it was created with oil and gas revenues, is a shareholder in many of the world's largest companies, including Big Oil, and has the power to influence other investors with your investment decisions.
As of the end of 2023, it held stakes in 220 energy companies in 35 countries , representing 2.6% of all investments. The fund held 3.4% in BP, 2.88% in Shell, 2.42% in TotalEnergies, 1.35% in ExxonMobil and 1% in Chevron.
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The article The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund reaches a new high in value. comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-fondo-sovrano-norvegese-tocca-un-nuovo-massimo-di-valore/ on Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:02:59 +0000.