Tag Archives: Sovereign Wealth Fund

Reuters: Norway wealth fund says it’s hard to find right green energy projects

November 3, 2020Accounting / Financial, Business News, GovernmentGreen Investments, Nicolai Tangen, Sovereign Wealth Fundadmin

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s $1.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, is having trouble finding suitable unlisted renewable- energy projects to invest in due to the paucity of projects and strong competition for stakes in them, its new CEO said.

Such investments are new for the fund which, until this year, was only allowed to invest in stocks, bonds and real estate.

“In our experience so far, there are many investors looking for these investments and pricing is thus not always as attractive for us,” the fund’s new CEO, Nicolai Tangen, told a parliamentary hearing on Friday.

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Institutional Investor: Why Did a Hedge Fund Manager Worth $700 Million Take a $630,000-a-Year Job Managing an Oil Fund?

August 11, 2020Accounting / Financial, Business News, GovernmentNBIM, Nicolai Tangen, Oil Fund, Sovereign Wealth Fundadmin

At 3:00 in the afternoon on Thursday, November 14, a small group of the world’s most powerful people prepared to board two chartered airplanes in two separate European capitals.

They were headed for Philadelphia for a weekend-long event that had been several years in the making for its creator, Nicolai Tangen, the Norwegian founder of one of Europe’s most successful hedge funds, London-based AKO Capital.

“You are all exceptional,” Tangen wrote in the program for the event. “You all want to extend your range and open your minds. But, like me, you may not always have sufficient time in your daily lives to do this, which is why I have had to whisk you away to learn not only from some of the world’s most inspiring speakers and professors, but also from each other.”

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Bloomberg: Masters of $1 Trillion Fund Reap Rewards of a Very Good Idea

May 19, 2020Business News, Financial / Investment, GovernmentCoronavirus, COVID-19, Jan Tore Sanner, NBIM, Sovereign Wealth Fundadmin

In one of the world’s richest countries, the finance minister may soon need to break the spending record he just set.

For Jan Tore Sanner, the 55-year-old who’s been running Norway’s finances since January, that’s not really a problem thanks to a couple of choices his country made a while back.

After Norway first discovered oil in 1969, a decision was made that would set it apart from other petro-states. Instead of splurging its newfound wealth on glitzy opulence to be savored by a small elite, Norway ended up putting the money in an oil fund for the people. Its wealth fund is now more than three times the size of Saudi Arabia’s, even though Norway’s oil production is dwarfed by the OPEC leader’s.

Reuters: Hedge fund manager to lead Norway sovereign fund after $124 billion loss

March 27, 2020Business News, Financial / InvestmentNBIM, Nicolai Tangen, Sovereign Wealth Fund, Yngve Slyngstadadmin

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, named a London-based hedge fund manager as its new chief executive on Thursday and said it had lost $124 billion (104 billion pounds) this year as stock markets tanked due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Norwegian-born Nicolai Tangen, until now chief executive of AKO Capital, which he established in 2005, will take the helm in September, succeeding Yngve Slyngstad who announced his resignation last year.

“Tangen has built up one of Europe’s leading investment firms and has delivered very good financial results as an international investment manager,” Norwegian central bank Governor Oeystein Olsen said while announcing the appointment.

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CNBC/Reuters: UPDATE 2-Norway wealth fund earned a record $180 bln in 2019

March 2, 2020Accounting / Financial, Business NewsNorges Bank, Sovereign Wealth Fundadmin

OSLO, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, made a 19.9% return on investment last year, earning a record 1.69 trillion Norwegian crowns ($180 billion) as stock markets rallied, it said on Thursday.

The $1.1 trillion fund’s return for the year was stronger than that of its benchmark index, it added.

“2019 has been a very good year for the fund … this is the greatest increase in value in a single year in the fund’s history,” said central bank Governor Oeystein Olsen, who chairs the fund’s board.

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Bloomberg: Norway Unexpectedly Withdraws Cash From Massive Wealth Fund

October 2, 2019Business News, Financial / InvestmentSovereign Wealth Fundadmin

Norway unexpectedly took almost $400 million from its sovereign wealth fund in August, marking the first such withdrawal in over a year as western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer takes advantage of its enormous piggy bank amid a decline in oil prices.

Tapping the world’s biggest wealth fund remains an extremely rare occurrence in Norway. The government made its first ever withdrawal in 2016, following a collapse in crude prices. The huge fiscal buffer that the fund represents has helped Norway’s central bank avoid some of the extremes of monetary stimulus to which its peers have had to resort.

The finance ministry in Oslo has yet to give an official reason for its latest withdrawal, which comes after oil prices dropped to a seven-month low in early August. But the decision suggests Norway’s budget may have grown more sensitive to volatility in commodity prices after the Conservative-led government spent record amounts of the country’s income from fossil fuels.

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Bloomberg: Norway’s Fund Wants to Add Up to $100 Billion in U.S. Stocks

September 2, 2019Business News, Financial / InvestmentSovereign Wealth Fund, USAadmin

Norway’s wealth fund proposed overhauling its global holdings, calling for a shift away from Europe in a move that would allow it to boost its U.S. stock investments by as much $100 billion and take a larger chunk of the biggest technology companies.

In a letter sent to the Finance Ministry released on Tuesday, the $1 trillion fund recommended that its investments “be adjusted further towards float-adjusted market weights by increasing the weight of equities in North America and reducing the weight of equities in European developed markets.”

The response comes after the ministry last year asked the fund to review the geographical weighting that had been in place since 2012. The ministry on Tuesday said it would present its response in the “spring of 2020” and that any changes would be implemented gradually.

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Bloomberg: Walmart Is Now Ethical Enough for Norway’s $1 Trillion Wealth Fund

July 1, 2019Accounting / Financial, Business News, Financial / InvestmentSovereign Wealth Fund, Walmartadmin

Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund revoked its more than decade-long exclusion on Walmart Inc. after the U.S. retailer tightened control over potential human rights abuses in its supply chain.

Walmart has made “positive developments” in monitoring its suppliers, the fund’s Council on Ethics said in a statement released Tuesday.

“Furthermore, the company engages actively in selected, high-risk areas in order to help bring about improvements in working conditions,” the council said in a letter. “There seem to be fewer reports of poor working conditions in Walmart’s supply chain now than there were before.”

The fund also decided to revoke exclusions to Grupo Carso SAB de CV, General Dynamics Corp., Nutrien Ltd., Rio Tinto Ltd. and Rio Tinto Plc, as well as Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB de CV, according to a statement.

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Bloomberg: Here’s What Lawmakers Want to Do With Norway’s $1 Trillion Fund

June 4, 2019Business News, Energy, Financial / Investment, GovernmentOil Fund, Regjeringen, Sovereign Wealth Fundadmin

Key lawmakers gave a nod to a range of changes for Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund — from divesting some of its oil stocks, to an overhaul of its fixed-income holdings and tighter restrictions on coal investments.

But even after one of the most eventful years in the fund’s history, more change could be coming, documents from parliament’s Finance Committee revealed.

As the committee as expected late on Tuesday approved the government’s plans ahead of a vote in parliament, opposition politicians made a series of proposals and comments that show what the world’s biggest wealth fund may have in store in the years ahead, maybe even as soon as after the 2021 election.

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Bloomberg: Norway’s Wealth Fund Surges $84 Billion in First Quarter

May 6, 2019Business News, Financial / InvestmentSovereign Wealth Fundadmin

Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund gained $84 billion in the first quarter, or $16,000 per citizen, after it took advantage of a market sell-off late last year to build its massive portfolio.

Return was 9.1 percent, or 738 billion kroner ($84 billion)
Stocks rose 12.2 percent, bonds 2.9 percent and real estate 1.7 percent
Fund held 69.2 percent in equities, 28 percent in bonds and 2.8 percent in real estate

The fund’s chief executive officer, Yngve Slyngstad, said it was an “exceptional” quarter with the third highest quarterly return on record and the highest ever in terms of kroner. He directed the fund to buy almost $30 billion in stocks in November through January to take advantage of a drop in prices and drive its holdings to near the 70 percent limit.

“The most significant change in the first quarter was probably the new signals from the Federal Reserve, which to a large degree drove the market,” he said in an interview after a press briefing in Oslo. “There have been very different views on macroeconomic developments from different actors.”

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