In a news conference on Wednesday, Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the fund, popularly known as Norges Bank Investment Management, was asked about whether the fund could disappear in the future, to which he responded in the affirmative. “And the worst part is that in the world we live in today, it is fairly likely,” he was quoted as saying.
Tangen further said that there is no country in the world that has managed to hold on to a large financial fortune over a period of time. “Fortunes are always lost in the end,” he said.
Calling the fund a “piggy bank for the whole of Norway”, Tangen went on to warn that the country must be prepared for the value of the fund to go “up and down.”
The Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) was set up in the 1990s to invest proceeds from Norway’s booming oil and gas industry. As of date, the fund is an investor in more than 7,000 companies across 50 countries and owns stake in more than 1.5% of the world’s publicly listed stocks.
It also gained further prominence in 2024, when it voted against Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package from Tesla. In return, Musk had declined an invitation from Tangen to a private dinner and a conference run by NBIM in Oslo.
As part of the half-yearly disclosures, NBIM also disclosed a 0.05% stake in the newly listed SpaceX, the biggest IPO of the world. Tangen attributed the record profit to good returns from the equity markets, particularly the Asian Technology stocks.
Equities are two-thirds of the overall NBIM portfolio, which also includes investments in fixed income, real estate and renewable energy infrastructure.
Nearly 40% of the portfolio is invested in US equities, with Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft being the top holdings. The 1.3% stake in Nvidia is now worth $61.8 billion, while the 1.2% stake in Apple is worth $52.7 billion as of June 30. The small SpaceX stake in worth $1.2 billion. Despite the frictions with Musk, NBIM still has a 1% stake in Tesla, worth nearly $16 billion.
Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, ASML, Intel and Nvidia, all chip-linked stocks featured among the funds’ best performers.
