The Central Bank of Norway (Norges Bank) which operates the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, has begun investing in equities in the Colombo Stock Exchange.

Norges Bank acquired 7.52 million shares, representing 1.14 percent of the shareholding in Textured Jersey Lanka PLC (TJL) over the past quarter, according to TJL’s interim statements released last week. Unconfirmed market sources said Norges Bank bought shares in Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB) as well as several other companies in recent times. 

The world’s largest fund manager, Blackrock also has 0.66 percent share ownership in HNB, while Norges Bank has 9 percent ownership in Blackrock.
Dr Naveen Gunawardane’s LYNEAR Wealth Management is believed to be acting as the agent for Norges Bank in Sri Lanka.

The market value of Norges Bank’s sovereign wealth fund is currently 7,297 billion Norwegian Krone or US$ 859.88 billion, while the value of total sovereign wealth funds in the world is said to be just over US$7.1 trillion. The only larger funds in the world are the pension funds in the US and Japan.

Norway’s oil profits are diverted to the fund, and some of the fund’s returns are usually injected into the country’s budget.

Its asset portfolio has been divided into equities comprising 59.7 percent of the investments, fixed income securities making up 37.3 percent and real estate bringing up the remaining 3 percent.