Norway, the world’s biggest wealth fund « Euro Weekly News

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, reached a record €20 trillion krone on Friday, December 6, or €1,700 billion, making it the biggest piggy bank in the world.

The fund, established in 1990, reinvests profits from Norway’s oil and gas industry. Its total value equates to approximately 3.6 million Norwegian krone (€310,000) per Norwegian citizen. To put that in context, Norway has a population of around 5.6 million.

The fund is not only cash but also shares in nearly 8,800 companies, including major names such as Shell, Nestlé, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Nvidia, and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, not to mention a considerable amount in bonds and real estate.

Having doubled in size in the last 5 years, the fiscally forward-thinking country’s wealth fund is now worth more than 4 times its own GDP. The rainy-day savings of Norway now are worth more than the GDP of Australia, a country with 5 times the population. And as gas and petroleum have continued to flow in, and stock markets have continued to rise, Norway can pretty much afford to retire and put its feet up.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund made up of 70 percent of assets in global stocks, about 25 percent in bonds

Norges Bank Investment Management, which operates the fund, invests some 70 percent of assets in global stocks, about 25 percent in bonds, and the rest in real estate and renewable energy plants, with most of its portfolio tracking international market indexes. In fact, within that fund, Norway keeps 1.5 percent of all the company shares in the world.

The fund hit the 10 trillion krone milestone in 2019, and was boosted further in the following years by global economic stimulus during the pandemic and by soaring natural gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.