The largest sovereign fund in the world will he by the end of the year to cross the symbolic milestone of 1,000 dollars ? The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has seen its value graze the ceiling at the end of the second quarter, driven by the upturn in the stock market, show official figures released on Tuesday.
With a yield of 2.6% over the quarter, the fund saw its value reach 8.020 billion crowns (957 billion dollars in the course of time) on 30 June, said the Bank of Norway, in charge of its management. Since then, it has still closer to the bar pharaonic 1,000 billion since it revolved around 976 billion Tuesday afternoon, more than 184.000 dollars for each of the approximately 5.3 million Norwegians.
A 6.5% return in the first half
Intended to capitalize on the oil revenues, the public of the country to sustain the funding of the welfare State, the fund has benefited particularly from the second quarter’s gain of 3.4% on its equity investments. These represent 65.1 per cent of his portfolio with shares in approximately the 9,000 companies around the world, the three main ones being Apple (58.2 billion crowns at the end of June), Nestlé (50,7 billion) and the house-mother of Google, Alphabet (42.7 billion). The investment in bonds (32.4% of assets) and real estate (2.5%) were meanwhile posted returns of 1.1% and 2.1%.
For the entire first half, the overall yield amounted to 6.5%, a gain of 499 billion crowns, the highest result in the history of the fund financed since 1996.
“We can’t expect returns as high in the future”, however, has repeated the number two in the fund, Trond Grande, in a press release.
The bottom of wool the government
In the second quarter, the government has again punctured the big pot, to the tune of 16.3 billion crowns, to fuel its budget. Because of the fall in the price of hydrocarbons, Oslo draws now more in the fund than it does to put in.
This practice is, however, subject to stringent conditions: to avoid that the bottom wool does eventually shrink, the right team in power has decided to lower to 3%, against 4% previously, the maximum withdrawals allowed.
(with AFP)
