Norway’s $2 trillion oil fund rises 15% as global stocks lift gains

Norway’s $2 trillion oil fund, the largest of its kind, posted an annual profit of about $248 billion last year, with strong gains in global stocks contributing to a 15.1% gain.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) manages the fund, which was established in the 1990s by Norway’s oil and gas industry to invest on behalf of the Norwegian population. It is an investor in more than 7,200 companies across 60 countries, with a stake in 1.5% of the world’s publicly listed stocks.

The fund was worth about $2.2 trillion by the end of 2025, up from about $2.08 trillion a year earlier.

The fund generated a profit of 2.36 trillion Norwegian kroner, or $248 billion, or 15.1%, last year. That’s 0.28 percentage points, or 50 billion kroner, below the performance of its benchmark index.

In a statement, NBIM CEO Nikolai Tangen highlighted the “strong rise” in global stocks, with US technology as a big contributor, along with capital that faced US tariff hikes. He highlighted “positive developments” in renewable infrastructure investments.

Acknowledging that 2025 will be a year of “constant turbulence and surprises”, Tangen said solid corporate earnings, AI and optimism around central bank interest rate cuts have helped lift its equity investments.

“US technology stocks contributed the most to positive returns, driven mainly by the largest technology companies,” he said in the report.

Overall, about 40% of NBIM’s investments are in US equities, with its most valuable holdings including a 1.3% stake in Nvidia, 1.2% in Apple and 1.3% in Microsoft. NBIM invests in fixed income, real estate and renewable energy infrastructure.

Its equity investments, which have a market value of about $1.6 trillion and make up more than 71% of the fund, returned 19.3% last year.

Its unlisted renewable energy infrastructure portfolio returned 18.1%. Last year, the fund made several renewable power investments, including Germany’s largest power grid.

Fixed income assets, more than 26% of the fund’s assets at $594 billion, advanced 5.4%, while its unlisted real estate investments rose 4.4%.

On Thursday, NBIM said it is using AI to screen investments for ethical issues, a process that began in late 2024 when it introduced Anthropix’s cloud model to its ESG process.

Late last year, the fund suspended its normal ESG assessment processes after the White House criticized its decision to divest its holdings in America’s Caterpillar over the conflict in the West Bank.