Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund: The Elephant in The Room
According to Wikipedia, the Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund (officially called the Government Pension Fund of Norway) is the fourth-largest global sovereign wealth fund, with 1.63 Trillion USD under management. For a fund started in 1998 in a country with a population of 5.4 million people, the fund size is nothing short of amazing.
Unlike some sovereign funds, the Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund is quite publicity-shy. Many professional and retail investors may have heard of it but rarely know more than the name. As a comparison, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund manages a nearly three times more extensive portfolio than Berkshire Hathaway’s (Warren Buffett) portfolio.
Investment Mandates and Portfolio Breakdown
The fund has several investment mandates, but the most important are equities and fixed income—70.9% and 27.1%, respectively, of all investments. The remaining 2% are in real estate and infrastructure.
All the statistics on their performance that we will write about were taken from the fund’s website. We will use 10-year data as we deem it the most relevant timeframe. It is essential to add that the Fund’s performance is benchmarked against a set of FTSE and Barclays’s Indexes.
Let’s start with their fixed income portfolio, which accounts for 27.1% of their assets. The 10-year performance of the fixed income portfolio is 2.08% annually, while the benchmark has returned 1.79% annually for the period.
The standard deviation of their portfolio is 4.14% annually, while their benchmark is 4.4%. That performance may look just ok to the average retail investor, but this is extremely impressive.
When institutions have a benchmark, portfolios are constructed so large deviations from the benchmark can not occur—moreover, the more extensive the portfolio, the higher its transaction costs. Hence, practically all large portfolios underperform their benchmark.
To have such a comprehensive portfolio and not only beat its benchmark but outperform while exhibiting lower volatility than its benchmark is an achievement close to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.
Fixed Income Strategy Insights
The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund’s reputation in the fixed-income markets is similar to Mike Tyson’s in his prime. Dealers dread their calls because the fund usually gives smart orders, and whatever they buy will probably outperform most other bonds—practically every time!
Let’s see if there are some practical implications that we can “borrow” from them. Here are the top 20 holdings of their fixed-income portfolio, taken from their website:
In the traditional CAPM model, the portfolio consists of government bonds (riskless component) and an equity Index (risk component). Usually, the proportion is 40% bonds and 60% equities.
However, our experience shows that statistically significant outperformance occurs if the bond portfolio includes some corporate bonds. In that sense, even the fixed income component is not absolutely “riskless,” but history suggests it is practically riskless.
Corporate Bonds: Strategic Advantages and Selection Criteria
We can see that the Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund holds quite a bit of corporate bonds. Especially bank bonds. Those issuers tend to be significant players in the global financial system. They are heavily supervised, and their respective domestic governments are believed not to allow them to default.
So, while the bonds of WFC, UBS, JPM, and BAC trade at a discount to US treasuries, those bonds are only marginally riskier.
For example, JPM 5-year corporate bonds in USD are trading at 4.6% per annum, while 5-year US treasuries are trading at 4.1%. Given those yields and assuming a 0% recovery on the bonds in default, the implied probability of JPM’s default in the next five years is 2.5%—small but not 0%.
However, that chance is closer to 0.25% or even lower. It makes sense to buy large, systematically important bank corporate bonds. After Lehman Brothers, such institutions are heavily supervised, and it is pretty unrealistic to expect they will be allowed to go bankrupt.
How can this be incorporated into your bond portfolio? Always buy bond ETFs that contain highly rated corporate bonds, like BND (Vanguard Total Bond ETF), instead of IEF (i-Shares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF).
Instead of buying TLT (i-Shares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF), buy BLV (Vanguard Long Term Bond Index ETF).
Equity Portfolio Performance
Moving on to equities, which constitute 70.9% of assets. The fund has returned 8.85% annually, while its benchmark has returned 8.53% comparatively. The standard deviation of the fund portfolio is 13.37% annually, while its benchmark is 13.25%.
Although that performance is not as impressive as the performance of the fixed-income portfolio, it is still quite remarkable. As we said, it is rare for a stock portfolio with nearly 1 trillion USD to consistently beat its benchmark.
Practical Takeaways from the Fund’s Equity Strategy
So, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund managers are doing their job quite well, but how can one use their expertise? Their portfolio is quite extensive – they have over 8000 individual stock positions. They are not like Warren Buffett, who keeps his portfolios highly concentrated. Just because the Norwegian Wealth Fund is buying one stock, it does not mean it is going up. They may buy a stock only because it is included in their benchmark.
Fortunately, we found one statistically significant pattern. If the Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund is more than 1% owner of a stock, it usually means they are overweight that stock. Here are their top equity holdings by value of investments:
For example, while the Fund is probably overweight both MSFT and AAPL, it likes MSFT better since it owns 1.26% of MSFT vs. 1.11% of AAPL. Also, while the Fund probably outweighs NVDA and TSM, it is a bigger fan of TSM, with 1.75% ownership over NVDA and 1.17% ownership at current valuations.
Generally, we use their ownership stake as a check for our valuations. We still need to trust them completely, but they are helpful. For example, when people talk about value investing, one company repeatedly pops up—T (AT&T). How much of T does the Fund own—0.91%?
Yes, it seems that the “Wizards of Oslo” are not fans of T. Another company they are not fans of is BRK (Berkshire Hathaway), which owns only 0.85% of it.
Conclusion
The best thing about their portfolio is that since they own a share of practically all publicly listed companies worldwide, one can receive feedback on any stock, sector, or geographical region.
For example, is BABA a buy at current prices? According to them, the answer is yes – they own 1.79% of the company.
Should we be looking to buy Chinese companies? According to them, the answer is no. They have invested only 3.5% of their stock portfolio in Hong Kong and China vs. 3.7% for the benchmark index.
What sectors should we be looking to buy or avoid? The answer to that question is not easy to find, and to answer it, we made a few assumptions, which may not be correct.
However, we believe the Fund is underinvested in the technology and communications sectors and is overinvested in practically all other sectors, with the most significant additional investment in the financial, industrial, and consumer discretionary sectors.
In conclusion, we will say that in this complex world where actual ownership in any stock can be easily hidden and where “Market Wizards” very often turn out to be hustlers, the Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund stands out.
It is a massive player with an outstanding track record and, most importantly, very transparent and easy to follow. We regularly use the data they publish on their website to check our stock or sector valuations.