Norway plans to buy up U.S. real estate

Trond Grande
Trond Grande

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, valued at $650 billion, is planning to make a real estate investment in the United States, Bloomberg reported. The fund expects to invest in the U.S. “by the end of next year at the latest,” Trond Grande, deputy chief executive officer at Norges Bank Investment Management, told Bloomberg. “The U.S. is the largest real estate market, so if you want to have a global portfolio you must have exposure to the U.S.”

The sovereign wealth fund was approved in 2010 to invest 5 percent of its capital at most in real estate. It has since invested in Paris and London for $2 billion — as of the end of June, real estate made up 0.3 percent of the fund’s holdings.

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No specific cities are named, but the fund’s investments will focus on well-developed markets and on commercial and retail properties. Bloomberg said the fund is preparing this investment as the upturn in American real estate values “lost steam” in the previous three quarters. [Bloomberg News]