World’s largest sovereign wealth fund posts $138 billion in first-half profit as AI demand boosts tech

Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund on Wednesday posted first-half profit of 1.48 trillion kroner ($138 billion), primarily driven by robust returns on its investments in technology stocks.

The so-called Government Pension Fund Global — the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund — said it had a value of 17.75 trillion kroner at the end of June.

The fund’s overall return for the six-month period was 8.6%, which was 0.04 percentage points lower than the return on its benchmark index.

Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, said on Wednesday that equity investments gave a “very strong” return in the first half of the year.

“The result was mainly driven by the technology stocks, due to increased demand for new solutions in artificial intelligence,” Tangen noted.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund said its equity portfolio posted a return of 12.5% through the first half of the year, while its fixed income and unlisted real estate portfolios incurred marginal losses.

The fund reported negative returns of 17.7% on its unlisted renewable energy infrastructure portfolio across the first six months of the year. It said higher capital costs had adversely affected the value of investments in the period from January to June.

Looking ahead, NBIM’s Tangen said in a news conference that stock markets were not expected to rise in the way they had done in previous years, according to Reuters.

Tangen reportedly said that a lot of uncertainty and a “completely different geopolitical situation” meant there were now more risks to global stocks.

One of the world’s largest investors, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector. To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,700 companies in over 70 countries around the world.