Extra $200 Billion: Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund Has Best Year Ever
Posted on 02/27/2020
For 2019, Norway Government Pension Fund Global returned 19.95%, equivalent to 1,692 billion kroner (US$ 192,124,000,000). This is the highest return measured in kroner in a single year in the fund’s history. In addition, this is the sovereign wealth fund’s second best return measured as a percentage. Equity investments generated 26.02% annual return, fixed income generated 7.56% return, and unlisted real estate generated a 6.84% return. In 2018, the wealth fund posted a -6.12% annual return.
“2019 has been a very good year for the fund. The market value of the fund increased by 1,832 billion kroner to 10,088 billion kroner at the end of the year. This is the greatest increase in value in a single year in the fund’s history,” says Øystein Olsen, Chair of Norges Bank’s Executive Board, in a press release.
According to Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign fund amounted to a total of 10,088 billion kroner as at December 31, 2019, of which 70.8% was invested in equity, 2.7% in unlisted real estate and 26.5% in fixed income. Furthermore, the transfer of capital from the Norwegian government was 18 billion kroner for the year as a whole. The oil fund was invested in 9,202 companies at the end of 2019. Its average holding in the world’s listed companies was 1.5%.
“2019 has been a great year in the fund’s history, driven by positive equity returns in all of the fund’s principal markets and in all equity sectors,” says CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management Yngve Slyngstad, in the press release.
For Norway’s GPFG, the largest investment in any one company was in Apple Inc., which accounted for 1.6%of the fund’s equity portfolio and had a market value of 117 billion kroner at the end of the year. NBIM participated in 182 initial public offerings during 2019. The largest of these were at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Uber Technologies Inc and beverage giant Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Ltd.
