Norway's Oil Fund in Consecutive Quarterly Loss

Norway's $863 billion sovereign wealth fund made a loss on its investments in the three months ended September for the second quarter in a row, as stocks continued to drop and Volkswagen (VOW.BE) weighed on results, the fund said on Wednesday.

The fund lost 273 billion crowns ($32 billion) in the quarter, after a loss of 73 billion from April to June, equivalent to a return on investment of minus 4.9 percent in the third quarter, against minus 0.9 percent in the second quarter.

Those losses were recouped in October, with the fund earning some 300 billion crowns, the fund's chief executive later said.

"Volkswagen has contributed to a loss of 4.9 billion crowns," deputy chief executive Trond Grande told a news conference about the quarterly performance, adding Volkswagen shares had a roughly neutral weighting in the fund's portfolio.

"In such circumstances, it is natural to have a dialogue with the company, but I don't want to speculate on which consequences it will have for our ownership," he said.

The fund had a stake of 1.22 percent in the firm, worth $1.3 billion, as of Dec. 31, 2014. It gives exact numbers only once per year, but the fund's stake in Volkswagen appeared to be just above one percent as of Sept. 30, according to a graphic included in presentation material.

The fund had written in the past to Volkswagen about its concerns over the company's leadership structure.

"We have been of the opinion that it is far from the best international practice," Yngve Slyngstad told Reuters.

"So that Volkswagen now finds itself in this current situation is something that some might say is not so surprising," he said, adding it was too early to say whether the steps taken by the company were sufficient.

"We have not had meetings or a dialogue with the board of Volkswagen," he said.

Mining and trading company Glencore (GLCNF), which has been hit by low commodity prices and worries over its debt levels, was also among the top losers in the fund's portfolio, it said.

The fund had a stake of 1.88 percent in Glencore, worth $1.1 billion, as of Dec. 31.

For the overall third-quarter results, the combined equity and fixed income investments lagged the fund's benchmark by 0.2 percentage point.

The fund raised its share of fixed income investments to 37.3 percent of its portfolio from 34.5 percent three months earlier while equity investments fell to 59.7 percent from 62.8 percent. Real estate holdings increased to 3.0 percent from 2.7 percent.

The fund holds $167,000 for each of Norway's 5.2 million people.

By Camilla Knudsen