Q1 2019: Growth driven by buoyant markets and effective management

Folketrygdfondet manages the Government Pension Fund Norway, which grew by NOK 13 billion to more than NOK 252 billion in the first quarter. This corresponds to a return of 5.5%.

“Our robust performance is attributable to buoyant markets and effective management,” says Folketrygdfondet CEO Kjetil Houg.

Folketrygdfondet invests in equities and fixed-income instruments in Norway and the other Nordic countries. The return on the equity portfolio was 8.4% in Q1, outperforming the equities benchmark index by 0.3 percentage points. The first-quarter return on the fixed-income portfolio was 1.4%, 0.1 percentage points above the fixed-income benchmark.

Overall, Folketrygdfondet outperformed the market by 0.2 percentage points.

The strong stock market gains seen in the first quarter of 2019 were preceded by a sharp drop in the last quarter of 2018.

“Folketrygdfondet is a long-term investor. Over the past five years, Folketrygdfondet has achieved an average annual return of 8.0%, 1.0 percentage points higher than the return on the benchmark index,” says Kjetil Houg.

Del: