NEWS

OSLO—Norway’s $877 billion sovereign-wealth fund, the world’s largest, said on Wednesday that it held fewer large equity stakes at the end of 2015 than a year earlier, due to a gradual shift away from Europe and a transfer of equity assets into its real-estate portfolio.

Norges Bank Investment Management, or NBIM, which manages the fund, said it held stakes exceeding 5% in 29 companies at the end of 2015, down from 57 companies a year earlier. It held stakes exceeding 2% in 1,074 companies, down from 1,205 companies a year earlier.

The annual disclosure of the Norwegian fund’s investments gives the public an unusually detailed view into how a sovereign-wealth fund manages money. Similar government-owned funds that manage billions of dollars on behalf of nations from Qatar to Kuwait and China provide very little information about their activities.

“The large ownership stakes we’ve had in some real-estate companies have been transferred to the real-estate portfolio,” said NBIM chief executive Yngve Slyngstad. “Some of our big investments in Europe have also been reduced somewhat, so they’ve fallen from slightly above 5% to slightly below 5%.”

The fund, one of the largest investors in the world, held 1.3% of all global listed equities at the end of 2015, unchanged on the year, and held 2.3% of all listed European equities, down from 2.4%.