Norway’s sovereign wealth fund will pay about $98 million dollars to extend the term of its ownership in a portfolio of New York properties and to acquire a few new, the fund said on Wednesday.
“The partnership between Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), Trinity Church Wall Street and Hines has extended the remaining 72-year ownership interest in the Hudson Square portfolio in New York City to a 99-year term,” it said in a statement.
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Norway’s oil riches are allowing the country to avoid the slow growth, slow inflation trap that’s gripping much of the developed world.
Its central bank on Thursday raised its key interest rate for a second time since September and signaled there’s more to come.
After delivering a rate increase to 1 percent, Norges Bank Governor Øystein Olsen flagged that another hike could come as soon as June, sending the krone soaring. The governor, who also oversees Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund, acknowledged that his “oil-driven” economy sets his country apart.
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LONDON — The Norwegian government has recommended that the country’s $1 trillion wealth fund sell its holdings in a group of companies that focus on finding and producing oil and gas.
The decision, the result of a two-year review of the giant fund’s investments in fossil fuels, is a compromise that stops short of divestment in major energy companies like Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell. But the fund’s activities are closely watched, and the move seems likely to increase concern among investors about the risks of holding such stocks.
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The richest Scandinavians are having a budget dispute involving Norway’s worst terrorist and a capsized warship.
The row started after Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg proposed an “under the line” budget item to cover the estimated 19 billion kroner ($2.2 billion) it will cost to replace a navy frigate that collided with a tanker and ran aground last year and to resurrect the government offices destroyed in Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 terror attack.
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Norway’s clout in financial markets far outweighs its economy, which is about a 10th the size of Germany’s. The central bank’s $1 trillion investment fund plows the Nordic nation’s oil income into public securities and has become the biggest of its kind, owning about 1.4 percent of global stocks.
Yngve Slyngstad, who grew up in Asker just outside Oslo and received multiple graduate degrees before devoting himself to finance, has been chief executive officer of Norges Bank Investment Management since 2008. The 56-year-old spoke to Bloomberg Markets about what makes a good money manager, how he learns about China’s economy, his concerns regarding information monopolies, and why all investing is active. He also explains his strategy for private equity and real estate and why his fund’s potential divestment from oil company stocks has nothing to do with climate change concerns. While the fund now aims to be 70 percent in equities, he foresees that increasing in the future. “With the larger funds you have a larger buffer,” he says. “We have a higher risk tolerance.”
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