Norges Bank Investment Management

And today, he's in an even bigger seat.

NBIM manages the assets of the Government Pension Fund Global, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.

NBIM holds roughly $60 billion in public and private real estate assets.

That's under 3% of the fund's total assets and below its own 3-7% target range.

Meanwhile, unlisted real estate returned just 3% in the first half of the year, making it one of the weakest performing parts of the fund's portfolio in 2025.

That was Alex Knapp, Global Head of Real Estate at Norges Bank Investment Management, live on stage at PERI Europe.

A few things worth remembering.

NBIM's real estate program is still way under-allocated against its own targets.

Sovereign Capital is also moving toward the rails of the economy.

EQT and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway's sovereign wealth fund, have reportedly teamed up to pursue Axiona Energia with an enterprise value around 11.9 billion euros.

The reported consortium has EQT holding approximately 75% and Norges approximately 25%.

The transaction is still a reported bidding process rather than a completed acquisition, but the structure is worth watching because sovereign capital is increasingly willing to sit beside specialist private infrastructure managers to own energy platforms directly.

Here's what actually hit the wire.

Norges Bank Investment Management, the outfit that runs Norway's $2.3 trillion oil fund and sits on top of the entire Sovereign Wealth League table, sent a formal proposal to Norway's finance ministry asking to cut the government bond share of its fixed income benchmark from 70% down to 50%.

And dollars, that is about $106 billion coming out of sovereign debt.

The United States takes the single biggest hit.

So in practice, the plan is basically to take their sub-index of government bond holdings, which is part of their bo- broader bond holdings, and they're gonna reduce government bond holdings from 70 to 50% of their total, uh, bond exposure.

And, uh, one of the, uh, the, the central bank governor there in Norway said, quote, "A government share of 50% will be sufficient to cover the liquidity needs, including in periods of turbulence in financial markets." Um, so what we're talking about is the Norges Bank Investment Management, or MBIM.

It was a fund founded in the early 1990s to invest Norway's oil and gas wealth, and it holds about $2.3 trillion in assets, uh, on its portfolio.

US Treasuries make up the bulk of Norway's sovereign wealth fund government bond holdings.

I'm the chairman of OFIF, and it's a great pleasure to be introducing this latest session in our new podcast series, Invested, to really get behind the scenes, get behind the headlines in what's going on in global finance and public policy, and what is really creating trends, creating waves in all these ups and downs of the financial vicissitudes that we know all about.

I'm very pleased to welcome today a very distinguished former central banker, Øystein Olsen, who was the governor of Norges Bank between twenty eleven and twenty twenty-two, and also one of the driving forces in the past behind the setting up of the Norwegian Oil Fund, uh, NBIM, which, as many people know, is the biggest sovereign fund in the world, with about two trillion dollars under management.

And since he left being the Norges Bank governor, uh, you, uh, Øystein, you're also a member of our advisory council, but you've been very busy writing some books.

You wrote your au- autobiography, or a book anyway, explaining the setting up of the NBIM.

And then just recently, you produced a book, uh, together with a co-author, Elvin Thomassen, who's a historian, about the state-

Yep

purposes?Yeah, I think that's going to happen i-in many countries which can afford to, which have the resources to s-spend more in.

I think actually m-most countries are about to spend much more money on military purposes, and we have had the same question.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund has proposed cutting the allocation of government bonds in its $2.3 trillion investment portfolio, chiefly affecting its holdings of U.S. treasuries as it seeks to diversify its risk exposure and boost returns.

The head of Norges Bank Investment Management wrote in a letter to the country's finance ministry made public on Friday that it recommended reducing the government's sub-index of its bond holdings from 70% down to 50%, a level it said would provide sufficient liquidity during market turbulence while allowing it to seek greater returns elsewhere.

What's that market turbulence? Is that the same thing as the disaster preparedness that the Dutch are doing with the gold? What is with all these Europeans and doomsday prepping this morning? Yikes.

The proposed reallocation would gradually cut NBIM's treasury holdings from 34.1% down to 21.9%.