Norway’s sovereign wealth fund said Thursday it had suffered losses in Turkey’s investment fund crisis and was reviewing its stock investments in the country, Bloomberg reported.
The fund, the world’s largest, invests Norway’s oil and gas revenues and had about $2.2 billion in Turkish shares at the end of June.
“We are more like victims than perpetrators,” Deputy CEO Trond Grande told reporters during a telephone briefing.
The review covers its Turkish holdings and the outside firms managing its investments in the country, but Grande gave no further details.
The crisis erupted in September after some investment funds could no longer meet withdrawal requests, putting the savings of nearly half a million investors at risk.
Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (SPK), the securities regulator, ordered 131 funds liquidated, meaning their assets would be sold to repay investors.
Prosecutors are investigating allegations that funds bought up shares in little known companies to inflate their prices.
Courts also ordered 11 more suspects jailed pending trial, bringing the total jailed in the fund investigations to 99, and put four others under house arrest, Turkish media reported on Friday.
Turkey’s parliament on Thursday approved a law governing the liquidation and repayment process, with priority for small savers.
The legislation allows advance payments of up to 1 million lira, about $20,000, and provides for inflation adjustments when calculating repayments.
Payments have been made to investors in 84 funds whose liquidation has been completed, according to government figures cited by Reuters.
Many savers, however, still lack access to their money and do not know when they will be repaid or how much they will recover.
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