Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund Hits $1 Trillion

Last week, the world's biggest state piggy bank passed a major landmark. It was announced that Norway's sovereign wealth fund, officially called the Government Pension Fund of Norway, passed $1 trillion for the first time. The country is a major oil producer and it transferred its first revenue to the fund in May 1996. Since then it has grown to become one of the world's biggest investors in stocks, owning $667 billion of shares in over 9,000 companies worldwide including Apple and Microsoft.

Recent growth has been driven by climbing stock markets and currency shifts and the current size of the fund is mind boggling. $1 trillion is around the same size as the Mexican economy and it equates to more than $190,000 for every one of Norway's 5.2 million citizens.

Even though New York based BlackRock Inc. is the largest asset manager worldwide (with $5.7 trillion in assets under management), state-owned investment funds are also extremely wealthy. According to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, the UAE's Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (which is also driven by oil revenue) comes second after Norway with $828 billion of assets. The China Investment Corporation comes third with $814 billion.