World’s largest sovereign wealth fund posts $110 billion in first-quarter profit as tech stocks surge

Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund on Thursday reported first-quarter profit of 1.21 trillion kroner ($109.9 billion), supported by robust returns on its investments in technology stocks.

“Our equity investments had a very strong return in the first quarter, particularly driven by the tech sector,” Trond Grande, deputy CEO of the fund, said in a statement.

The so-called Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, said it had a value of 17.7 trillion kroner at the end of March.

It described the relative return through the first three months of the year as “good” for equity and fixed income investments, but noted that “this was offset by weak results from real estate, leading to a negative result overall.”

The return on the fund’s equity investments in the first quarter came in at 9.1%, while the yield on the fixed income investments stood at -0.4% and investments in unlisted real estate returned -0.5%.

Norway’s wealth fund said the return on its unlisted renewable energy infrastructure was -11.4%.

The fund’s return was 0.1 percentage point lower than that of the benchmark index.

One of the world’s largest investors, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector. To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,800 companies in more than 70 countries around the world.

This breaking news story is being updated.