Norway wealth fund posts record $222 bln annual profit on tech boom

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Norway wealth fund posts record $222 bln annual profit on tech boom

general :: 1day ago :: source - reuters

By Gwladys Fouche

A view shows the building of Norway’s central bank (Norges Bank) in Oslo, Norway - REUTERS

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, reported on Wednesday a record annual profit of 2.51 trillion crowns ($222 billion), driven by last year's tech rally.

"The American technology stocks in particular performed very well," Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the fund's operator, said in a statement.

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The fund, which invests the Norwegian state's revenues from oil and gas production, is one of the world's largest investors, owning on average 1.5% of all listed stocks worldwide.

It also invests in bonds, real estate and renewable energy assets.

Nine out of the ten biggest equity holdings in the fund at the end of 2024 were tech companies, with the top three being Apple Inc(AAPL.O),Microsoft(MSFT.O) and Nvidia (NVDA.O).

The fund's return on investment in 2024 stood at 13% for the year, 0.45 percentage point lower than the return on its benchmark index.

Inflows from the Norwegian state into the fund in 2024 were 402 billion crowns, short of a record set in 2022 of nearly 1.1 trillion crowns.

The return on equity investments was 18% last year, fixed income investments gained 1%, unlisted real estate returned a negative 1% and unlisted renewable energy infrastructure had a return of minus 10%, NBIM said.

At the end of the year, 71.4% of the fund's assets were allocated to equities, up from 70.9% in 2023, bonds declined to 26.6% from 27.1%, unlisted real estate fell to 1.8% from 1.9% and renewable infrastructure represented 0.1% of investments, unchanged from the previous year.

($1 = 11.2858 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)