During market turmoil, Norway’s wealth fund went on equity shopping spree

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, used the turmoil on global markets in late 2018 to buy equities on the cheap, even though it lost 485 billion crowns ($56.76 billion) during the year overall, it said on Wednesday.

“The fund net bought equities for 185 billion (crowns) in fourth quarter 2018,” CEO Yngve Slyngstad said in a statement, adding the purchases amounted to 2.2 percent of the fund’s market value at end-2018.

Overall the fund, whose size is equivalent to $193,000 for every Norwegian man, woman and child, saw a negative return on investment of 6.1 percent in 2018, down from a positive 13.7 percent in 2017.

The fund, which grows from fresh injections of cash from Norway’s oil and gas revenues and market changes, contracted in 2018 for only the second time since it was set up in the 1990s. The only other time was in 2002.

Graphic: Largest SWFs – http://tmsnrt.rs/2tskfub

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