NORWAY MAY PULL ITS $1 TRILLION WEALTH FUND OUT OF OIL STOCKS
Norway’s sovereign-wealth fund said it may stop buying oil-and-gas stocks, a move that would deprive the energy sector of investment from a $1 trillion asset manager, writes The Wall Street Journal’s Dominic Chopping.
The Norwegian central bank, which uses the fund to invest the proceeds of the country’s oil industry, said that investing money back into the energy sector amplifies the government’s exposure to the price of crude, particularly given the country’s majority stake in the oil giant Statoil ASA.
The Ministry of Finance said the government aims to make a decision on the proposed divestment in the fall of 2018.
“Two years of weaker oil prices has cut into the income of many of the world’s largest sovereign-wealth funds, which are in largely resource-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,” the Journal reports.
