NBIM announces closure of Shanghai office after 16 years

Norway’s oil fund – the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund – has announced the closure of its Shanghai office.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the $1.5 tn Pension Fund Global, says the closure is ‘driven by operational considerations’ and does not affect either the fund’s investment strategy or its investments in China. 

NBIM says that, as at the end of 2022, it was invested in approximately 850 Chinese companies with a total value of approximately $42 bn. Seeking to reassure those firms, the fund manager says the decision to close its Shanghai office – which currently employs eight people – is unrelated to its investments.

‘Over the years, our Singapore office has increasingly served as the hub for the whole of the Asian region and has been built up to take care of all operational functions, including for China,’ says NBIM in a statement. ‘The decision to close the office in Shanghai is therefore only an adjustment of our operating business model.’

In June, NBIM reported a 13.7 percent return on its equity investments in the first half of 2023 after a poor showing the previous year when volatility and the war in Ukraine saw the fund take a -17 percent hit on equities.