View of the historic Hanseatic pier, Bryggen, in Bergen, Norway, September 16, 2024.
Manuel Romano | Null Photo | Getty Images
Norway’s $2 trillion oil fund, the largest of its kind, generated an annual profit of about $248 billion last year, a return of 15.1%, thanks to strong gains in global stocks.
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) manages a fund established in the 1990s to invest proceeds from Norway’s oil and gas industry on behalf of the Norwegian people. The company has invested in more than 7,200 companies in 60 countries and holds approximately 1.5% of the world’s listed stocks.
The fund will be worth about $2.2 trillion at the end of 2025, up from about $2.08 trillion a year earlier.
The fund generated a return of NOK 2.36 trillion ($248 billion) last year, or 15.1%. This underperformed the benchmark index by 0.28 percentage points (50 billion kroner).
NBIM CEO Nikolai Tangen said in a statement that he highlighted the “strong rally” in global equities, with U.S. technology being the biggest contributor, along with financials, as the portfolio weathers the U.S. tariff hike. He also highlighted “positive progress” in renewable energy infrastructure investment.
Tangen acknowledged that 2025 was a year of “constant disruption and surprise” and said strong corporate earnings, optimism about AI and central bank interest rate cuts helped boost equity investment.
“U.S. tech stocks contributed the most to positive returns, primarily driven by the largest technology companies,” he said in a report.
Overall, approximately 40% of NBIM’s investments are in U.S. stocks, with its most valuable holdings including 1.3% in Nvidia, 1.2% in Apple, and 1.3% in Microsoft. NBIM also invests in fixed income, real estate, and renewable energy infrastructure.
The company’s stock investments, which have a market capitalization of about $1.6 trillion and account for more than 71% of the fund, returned 19.3% last year.
This was followed by the unlisted renewable energy infrastructure portfolio, which rose 18.1%. The fund made several renewable power investments last year, including Germany’s largest power grid.
Fixed income assets, which account for more than 26% of the fund’s assets at $594 billion, rose 5.4%, while private real estate investments rose 4.4%.
NBIM announced Thursday that it is now using AI to review ethical issues in investments. This process began in late 2024 with the introduction of Anthropic’s Claude model into the ESG process.
Late last year, the fund suspended its regular ESG evaluation process after the White House criticized its decision to sell a stake in U.S. company Caterpillar because of its connection to the West Bank conflict.
