Norway's wealth fund

Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, built from oil revenues, is the largest sovereign wealth fund. It owns slices of thousands of companies worldwide.

Value moves daily with markets and exchange rates.

Context

The fund is managed by Norges Bank Investment Management on behalf of the Norwegian state. Its stated purpose is to invest revenue from the country's oil and gas resources so the money benefits current and future generations, rather than being spent all at once.

NBIM reports that the fund's value exceeds 22,000 billion Norwegian kroner, which is on the order of 2.2 trillion US dollars at recent exchange rates. It holds about 1.5 percent of all shares in listed companies worldwide, with stakes in roughly 7,100 companies.

The value changes daily with stock markets, bond prices and currency rates, so any single figure is a snapshot. Most holdings are in shares and bonds abroad, and the fund follows spending rules that limit how much the government can withdraw each year. It is often described as the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, a ranking that depends on how funds are defined and compared.

For comparison, other large sovereign funds, including those held by Gulf states and China, are run in different ways and disclose different amounts of detail, which is one reason the ranking is not always clear-cut.