In short
Norway's Government Pension Fund Global returned 15.1% in 2025, a gain of NOK 2,362 billion, and was worth NOK 21,268 billion at year-end. Equities returned 19.3% and made up 71.3% of the fund. It trailed its benchmark by 0.28 percentage point, but has beaten it by 0.24 percentage point a year since 1998.
A record-sized fund in a turbulent year
Norway's Government Pension Fund Global returned 15.1% in 2025, a gain of NOK 2,362 billion. That is the fund's second-highest return ever measured in kroner. At year-end it was worth NOK 21,268 billion, up from NOK 19,742 billion, and at the end of 2025 it held on average 1.5% of every listed company in the world.
The fund was built from Norway's oil and gas income, and its job is to turn a temporary resource into lasting wealth for future generations. What makes its annual report worth reading is less the size of the numbers than how openly it explains them, including what went wrong.
The year itself was far from calm. In his letter, chief executive Nicolai Tangen writes that if his group of friends had correctly predicted everything that happened in 2025, they would all have expected international markets to fall significantly. Instead, markets rose steadily, with only a few brief dips. The gap between headlines and results is the first lesson.
The numbers at a glance
| Investment type | Share of fund | Value (NOK billion) | 2025 return |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equities | 71.3% | 15,173 | 19.3% |
| Fixed income | 26.5% | 5,649 | 5.4% |
| Unlisted real estate | 1.7% | 372 | 4.4% |
| Unlisted renewable energy infrastructure | 0.4% | 91 | 18.1% |
Equities did the heavy lifting, with US technology companies again contributing most and financials also having a good year. Fixed income still returned a positive 5.4% despite higher US tariffs. At year-end the fund was invested in 7,201 listed companies across 68 countries, and 52.9% of it sat in the United States, followed by Japan, the UK and Germany.
There is a candid footnote. Before management costs, the fund's return was 0.28 percentage point below its benchmark index in 2025, about NOK 50 billion. The Executive Board notes that fund allocation, the property and infrastructure decisions, has pulled the three-year relative return below the benchmark, and stresses that performance must be judged as a whole and over time. Over 1998 to 2025 the fund beat its benchmark by 0.24 percentage point a year before costs, averaged a 6.6% annual return, and earned 4.3% a year after inflation and management costs.
How the fund is run
Since 2013 the fund has grouped its investing into three strategies. Market exposure spreads money widely and cheaply across the benchmark. Security selection holds a little more or less of individual companies than the index does. Fund allocation adds assets such as unlisted property and renewable infrastructure to improve the balance of return and risk over time.
Costs are kept remarkably low. From 2013 to 2025, annual management costs were 0.05% of assets under management, NOK 5 for every NOK 10,000 managed. At this size, every small saving compounds into billions.
The report is also direct about weak spots. The Executive Board says it is not satisfied with the results of its real estate investments, which have been weak both against the equities and bonds sold to fund them and against the broader real estate market. It responded with organisational changes and a new strategy: more sectors, more countries, and more investment through external managers and funds.
Renewable energy is moving the other way. Its share rose from 0.1% to 0.4% of the fund in 2025, including an investment in Germany's largest electricity grid. The Ministry of Finance allows up to 2%.
Responsible investment is part of the mandate. During 2025 the Executive Board strengthened its monitoring of countries affected by war and conflict, and in November 2025 Norway's Ministry of Finance appointed a committee to review the fund's ethical framework.
What this means for owners and family groups in the UAE
The Gulf is home to some of the largest sovereign funds in the world, and many family groups and business owners here manage serious wealth through holding companies. Norway's report offers four practical lessons. They are our reading, not the fund's advice.
- Judge results over years, not months. The fund lost NOK 1,637 billion in 2022 and earned NOK 2,214 billion the next year. A written long-term plan is what stops short-term noise driving decisions.
- Watch the costs. Fees and running costs quietly eat returns. Norway treats low cost as a source of return, not an afterthought.
- Name what is not working. The board publicly called its property results unsatisfactory and changed course. Family offices benefit from the same habit: measure each investment against a clear benchmark, and act when it falls short.
- Get the structure right. Clear roles, written rules and independent review sit behind every number in the report. For a UAE group that also means a holding structure that works under Corporate Tax, related-party pricing that holds up, and, for large groups, a view on the 15% global minimum tax.
Where BIFI Partners fits
BIFI Partners helps business owners, family groups and investment holding companies bring the same discipline to their own structures: reviewing group and holding structures under UAE Corporate Tax, documenting related-party transactions, checking whether a group falls into the top-up tax rules, and building management reports that show how each business and investment is really performing.
Key takeaways
- Norway's Government Pension Fund Global returned 15.1%, NOK 2,362 billion, in 2025 — its second-highest return in kroner.
- The fund was worth NOK 21,268 billion at the end of 2025, up from NOK 19,742 billion.
- Equities returned 19.3% and made up 71.3% of the fund; fixed income returned 5.4%.
- A stronger krone cut the kroner value of the fund by NOK 1,155 billion, which is why value rose less than the return.
- The fund trailed its benchmark by 0.28 percentage point in 2025 but has beaten it by 0.24 percentage point a year since 1998, before costs.
- Management costs averaged 0.05% of assets a year from 2013 to 2025.
- The Executive Board says it is not satisfied with real estate returns and has adopted a new real estate strategy.
- For UAE family groups, the lessons are a long horizon, low cost, honest benchmarking and a sound legal and tax structure.