RT.com
01 Apr 2023, 04:13 GMT+10
Hundreds of millions of dollars are stuck in the country due to Western sanctions, the fund's management says
Norway's $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the world's largest investors, is still unable to divest its holdings in Russia as the custodian bank is under Western sanctions, the Norwegian Finance Ministry said on Friday.
The Oslo-based Government Pension Fund is the world's biggest owner of publicly traded companies with a portfolio of about 9,000 stocks. It has around 0.2% of its assets invested in Russia.
"The market for trading in Russian financial instruments is still subject to comprehensive sanctions and has not been normalized as of March 2023," the ministry said in a statement.
The Nordic country's authorities decided to sell Russian stocks right after the start of the military operation in Ukraine. The fund held shares in 47 Russian companies and government bonds valued at 25 billion Norwegian crowns ($2.4 billion) at the end of 2021.
However, at that time the fund's management was resisting pressure to shed Russian assets, with CEO Nicolai Tangen saying it would be "a wrapped gift to the oligarchs who buy our shares."
Since then, Western nations have imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia which now prevent the Norwegian pension fund from divesting its assets.
"The concrete and practical problem is that the custodian bank that we use is under sanctions, and can't assist us with settlement of transactions, and neither with voting on shares" in Russian companies, deputy CEO, Trond Grande said in January. The situation is "deadlocked" he noted, adding that "there is no way we can either sell or buy or vote on these shares."
Details of the fund's portfolio at the end of 2022 released in January revealed a loss of about $2.8 billion from Russian holdings, compared to their value at the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly warned that sanctions imposed on the country would backfire. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Western nations would "suffer from their own restrictions" while being "disappointed" by Russia's resilience.
For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section
(RT.com)
Get a daily dose of Breaking Property News news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Breaking Property News.
More InformationBRUSSELS, Belgium: EU tech chief Margrethe Vestager has said that a draft code of conduct on artificial intelligence (AI) could ...
MOSCOW, Russia: After a turbulent 15 months of store closures and declining demand, Russian designers and brands are assisting the ...
BEIJING, China: On his return to China after a three year absence, which is his company's largest production hub, Tesla ...
SANTA CLARA, California: As investors piled more capital into Nvidia, the chipmaker that has become one of the biggest winners ...
WASHINGTON D.C.: The U.S. Commerce Department has said that trade ministers from 14 countries have taken part in the US-led ...
New Delhi [India], June 5 (ANI): Morgan Stanley on Monday said India's GDP growth will track above 6 per cent ...
CHICAGO, Illinois: Driven by an ongoing shortage of properties available on the market, in March US single-family home prices rose ...
The share of foreign apparel firms has dropped significantly in the country's shopping mallsRussian designers and brands have been actively ...
TOKYO, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Capital spending by Japanese companies in the January-March period rose 11 percent year on year, ...
DUBAI, 14th April, 2023 (WAM) -- Dubai's real estate market recorded 335 sales transactions worth AED916.36 million on Friday, in ...