Norway’s Petroleum Fund says it has entered a global custody agreement for fixed income instruments with Citibank.
“In the second quarter, an agreement for global custodian services for fixed income instruments was entered into with Citibank,” the fund said in its first-half report.
“The securities under internal management are to be kept together there, rather than distributed among several regional custodian institutions, as in the past.” No further details were available.
The fund has a fixed income portfolio put at Nkr455 bn (E54.6 bn) at the end of the second quarter.
The news comes as the fund disclosed that it made an investment return of 7.7% in the second quarter of this year – beating the benchmark by 0.07 percentage points.
That is the second highest quarterly return since the fund began investing in equities in 1998, second only to 1999’s fourth quarter, when the return hit 8%.
“The return on the Government Petroleum Fund in the second quarter of 2003 was 7.7% measured in terms of the currency basket that corresponds to the composition of the Fund’s benchmark portfolio,” the fund said.
The fund has now grown to Nkr775bn, from Nkr682bn at the start of the second quarter. The second quarter saw the fund’s market value rise by Nkr93.6bn, of which Nkr23.1bn was due to new capital.

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