Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), could lose its entire value if global markets collapsed, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) CEO, Nicolai Tangen has warned.

In a speech at the Arendalsuka conference in Arendal, the largest political gathering in Norway, Tangen hypothesised what could happen to the fund if there was a major global crisis.

Looking to add to the country’s “mental emergency preparedness”, he posited the question of whether the oil and gas fund could disappear.

“The answer to that question is ‘yes’, and the worst part is that, in the world we live in today, it is not totally improbable”, he stated.

GPFG was established in 1996 and has seen its value double in less than a decade.

It now has a market value of approximately NOK 22trn, equivalent to around €2trn, and supplies about a quarter of Norway’s public spending.

Tangen added that the past three decades had been characterised by an “abnormal” situation of low taxes, inflation, and interest rates.

“Let me stop here with the word ‘abnormal’ because it is in the period we are in now that the oil fund has grown”, he stated.

Indeed, figures published yesterday (12 August) showed that the GPFG returned 9.4 per cent in the first half of 2026, its highest half-year return in NOK on record.

This was despite earlier in the year NBIM reporting the fund made a loss of -1.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2026.

As at 30 June 2026, GPFG had a value of NOK 22,683bn, with 72.1 per cent invested in equities, 25.8 per cent in fixed income, 1.6 per cent in unlisted real estate and 0.5 per cent in unlisted renewable energy infrastructure.

By asset class, the fund's half-year results showed that the return on its equity investments was 13 per cent, the return on fixed-income investments was 0.9 per cent, and unlisted real estate returned 3 per cent.

Meanwhile, unlisted renewable energy infrastructure returned -0.2 per cent.

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