Norway $1 trillion wealth fund to cut back on real estate

Norway's $1 trillion wealth fund, one of the world's largest, says it will pull back on some of its global real estate investing. The fund says it will focus more on listed real estate companies a way of cutting costs and simplifying its approach after struggling to find properties to buy amid near record prices. It lowered its target for real estate in its portfolio to 3 to 5 percent from 7 percent.

The management should be “cost-effective” and “fairly simple” which means having “an overall property strategy with somewhat greater emphasis on listed holdings,” Egil Matsen, the deputy governor at Norway’s central bank who’s in charge of oversight of the fund. The fund says it will now disband its real estate unit, which has been built up to about 130 employees out of a total 570 at the fund.