Government Pension Fund-Global, Oslo, returned a record 25.6% on investments in 2009, spurred by surging worldwide stock and bond market values, the fund reported today.
Assets grew to 2.64 trillion Norwegian kroner ($446 billion) as of Dec. 31, from 2.275 trillion kroner, as of Dec. 31, 2008.
The fund's equity portfolio returned 34.3%, while bonds rose 12.5%. Equities made up 62.4% of assets, while bonds constituted 37.6%.
The sovereign wealth fund topped its custom benchmark by 4.1 percentage points; its 2008 investments had lagged its benchmark by 3.4 percentage points, largely from poor relative performance in bonds. However, bond performance strengthened greatly in 2009, outperforming its benchmark by 7.4 percentage points.
Equities in 2009 outperformed its benchmark by 1.8 percentage points.
Total assets were also boosted by inflows of 169 billion kroner in 2009 from the government's sale of petroleum resources, although that was less than half the 384 billion kroner in inflows 2008, and was the lowest yearly inflow since 2004.
