Russian National Wealth Fund

The Russian National Wealth Fund (Фонд национального благосостояния России) is Russia's sovereign wealth fund. It was created after the Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation was split into two separate investment funds on 30 January 2008.

Fund development
The two funds were the Reserve Fund, which was invested abroad in low-yield securities and used when oil and gas incomes fall, and the National Wealth Fund, which invests in riskier, higher return vehicles, as well as federal budget expenditures. The Reserve Fund was given $125 billion and the National Wealth Fund (NWF) was given $32 billion. The Reserve fund was exhausted by 2017. The Reserve fund had been depleted by budget deficits and the low oil price prices and it was emptied by the end of 2017 and ceased to exist, leaving the National Wealth Fund as the sole reserve fund.

In October 2008 the National Wealth Fund was permitted to invest in shares on the Russian Stock market, to support the country’s financial markets by buying shares in Russian companies, until December 2009. Support was also provided from the NWF to Russian banks, making the NWF a “lender of last resort” to banks.

One of the fund's main responsibilities is to support the Russian pension system, and since the closure of the Reserve Fund also funds budget deficits.

Once the NWF's liquid assets exceeds 7% of GDP, the Government can use monies from the NWF, as it proposed to do in 2020 to fund infrastructure projects.

The budget for 2022 set an oil price of $44.2 per barrel, with the NWF receiving money if the price was over the set price and selling assets to support the government budget if the price was lower. In 2023 this was changed to set an annual target of $8 trillion rubles revenues from oil and gas, anything below that seeing funds being taken from the NWF to support the budget, anything above being added to the NWF. As it turned out, the revenue in 2023 was 8.8 trillion rubles.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 1 trillion rubles ($10 billion) was ordered to be invested by the NWF in shares in Russian companies to support the stock markets and aid Russian companies. In January 2023 changes were proposed to allow "anti-crisis" investments to be made, with a cap of 4.25 trillion roubles ($61.24 billion) on these investments, irrespective of liquidity levels in the Fund which at that date stood at $87.2 billion, or 4.6% of GDP.

For 2024, Russia changed the funding rules again, so that the NWF will not receive the expected 2024 11.5 trillion rubles of oil revenue, which will go directly to the Russian budget instead, with just 1.8 trillion rubles being given to the National Wealth Fund in 2025. The rules also changed to recover the 2023 surplus that had been paid to the NWF, so that from late 2023 the central bank restarted dealing in currencies in the NWF, to sell the budget adjustment of 2023, where 11.8 billion rubles will be sold daily until 28 June 2024. Currencies would also be sold/bought for the expected 2024 budget adjustment based on a set $60 per barrel, expected to be 0.8 billion rubles per day sold on average. This will reduce both the fund value and the liquid assets by around 2.3 trillion rubles by the end of 2024. The 2024-6 budget expects the NWF to hold a reduced 11.1 trillion rubles at January 2025 and 13.0 trillion at January 2026.

Overview
The National Wealth Fund will receive funds from investment returns and any excess funds from oil and gas revenues. The existence of the NWF helps with the credit rating for Russia, by providing a reserve to provide "resilience to short-term shocks".

According to the Russian Ministry of Finance, the foreign debt securities the fund can invest in must have credit ratings of AA− or higher by Fitch or Standard & Poor's, or a rating of Aa3 by Moody's. Despite this, the fund agreed to buy (on 17 December 2013) $15 billion of Ukrainian Eurobonds, despite the fact that Ukraine had lower credit ratings at the time.

The NWF stands out from other global funds with it gathering investments into the national economy itself instead investing everything overseas, so it can provide a boost to the slow modernization of Russian infrastructure in a time of otherwise anemic investment. Other countries like Indonesia are following the Russian example in running a National Wealth Fund it is reported in 2020. Of course, because of a lack of a real "hard currency" reserve, the fund can quickly lose value in a case of internal crisis.

In 2016 the NWF had invested $2.6 billion in the Yamal LNG plant.

In 2020 the NWF bought 50% +1 share in Sberbank from Russia's Central Bank.

Starting from 2024, the NWF will invest $3.2 billion in an $11.2b project to build 600 civilian aircraft which will be sold to airlines at a below cost price.

Administration
The National Wealth fund is controlled by the Ministry of Finance.

Expenses of the NWF are limited in 2023-2025 to 8 trillion rubles ($114 billion)

Funds comprise liquid assets and long term investments. In December 2022 long term investments stood at 4.3 trillion rubles, with liquid assets at 6.1 trillion rubles.

Previously holding liquid assets in US dollars, Euros, UK Pounds, Yen, Yuan and Gold, Russia began selling some Sterling and all the US dollars in the summer of 2021, whilst buying Yuan to reach 30% and Euros to reach 40%, Sterling and Yen each at 5% and Gold 20% of the liquid fund value. After the start of the Ukraine war, Russia then decided to close the Euro holdings aiming to achieve this before the end of 2023 in favour of Chinese yuan, which would be limited to 60% of the fund value, with gold limited to 40% of the liquid fund value.

Fund composition
1 February 2022 ($177 billion) comprising: 38.56 billion euro (worth $41 billion), 4.17 billion pounds sterling (worth $5 billion), 600.30 billion Japanese yen (worth $4 billion), 226.70 bln Chinese yuan (worth $30 billion), 405.70 tons of gold (worth $28 billion) and 142.1 billion rubles (worth $2 billion) with $67 billion of other non liquid assets.

1 November 2023 ($146 billion) comprising: 3.66 billion euros (worth $4 billion), 279.77 billion Chinese yuan (worth $37 billion), 508.26 tons of gold (worth $33 billion), and 261.8 million rubles (worth $0 billion) plus other non liquid unnamed assets (valued at $72 billion).

1 January 2024 ($133 billion) comprising: 227.33 bln Chinese yuan (worth $31 billion), 358.96 tons of gold (worth $25 billion) and 1.514 bln ruble (worth $1 billion) plus other non liquid unnamed assets (valued at $76 billion).

Major changes in National Wealth Fund values

 * In the second half of 2019, the effect of an OPEC+ agreement to increase oil prices resulted in Russia receiving a high level of revenues, allowing 4.04 trillion rubles ($65.1 billion) to be added to the NWF.
 * In 2020, despite COVID-19 effects on the economy the NWF values increased by 50%, helped by high oil prices, a surplus in the Russian budget in 2019 and an investment in Sberbank. NWF purchased 50% +1 shares in 2020 for 2.14 trillion rubles.
 * In 2022, with very high oil prices, additional funds would normally have been added to the Fund, however with the cost of the war with Ukraine, in October $16.2 billion was withdrawn from the $127.9 billion liquid portion of the NWF.
 * In 2023, the budget deficit in December 2022 of 3.8 trillion rubles (€49.4 billion) and the effect of the 2022 Russian crude oil price cap sanctions required $38.1 billion to be withdrawn, with further withdrawals expected in 2023 as a result of the continuing sanctions over crude oil.
 * Russia sold 2.9 trillion roubles ($32 billion) of liquid assets in December 2023, to cover the planned budget deficit.

Size of the fund and historic numbers
Source by the Ministry of Finance of Russia:

Sanctions
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, several countries imposed economic sanctions on Russian banks, individuals and companies. On February 22, 2022, United States President Joe Biden announced new restrictions on activities involving the National Wealth Fund. The EU adopted sanctions in its 10th package in February 2023.

Assets in June 2023 include €9 billion that is frozen in foreign banks by sanctions.