New Legacy Fund website will launch Nov. 1, aiming to improve investment transparency

BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) — North Dakota plans to launch a new website later this year with details on how the $14 billion Legacy Fund is invested.

The website is on track to go live Nov. 1, one month later than originally projected, said Jodi Smith, executive director of the Retirement and Investment Office.

“Our goal is to have as much detail as possible,” Smith said. “The goal is to be as transparent as we possibly can.”

The website will allow the public to sort the state’s investments by country. Users will also be able to filter by financial category, called asset classes, such as equity or real estate.

“We’re trying to mirror ourselves after the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and I’m not 100% that we’ll get there in the first iteration,” Smith said. “The goal would be, for example, if you wanted to see how much we had invested in Canada, that you could simply search by Canada, and then you’d be able to break it down from there.”

The Legacy Fund was created by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2010 with the goal of being a source of perpetual revenue for the state. Nearly a third of the oil and gas taxes received by North Dakota are deposited into the Legacy Fund and invested. The earnings on those investments, determined by a five-year average of the fund’s value, are transferred to the general fund to be spent by the Legislature.

State Treasurer Thomas Beadle, a member of the State Investment Board that oversees the Legacy Fund’s investment, said the new website will be among the first of its kind for a state’s sovereign wealth fund because of the level of detail it will make available.

“The Alaska Permanent Fund does have a website, but it doesn’t have the breakdown of what this website will do,” Beadle said.

There have been growing calls in recent years for greater transparency in how the Legacy Fund is invested. One poll in February 2024 suggested 84% of voters want a full list of investments to be published. A bill requiring investments be published online and a website be developed for that purpose was approved by the Legislature in 2025.

Rep. Bernie Satrom, a Republican from Jamestown, co-sponsored that bill. But the lawmaker said he expects to be disappointed when the website is launched later this year.

“I hope they prove me wrong,” Satrom said.

The Legacy Fund was created for the people of North Dakota, and Satrom said they deserve to know how every dollar is being invested.

“I think they expect more. I think they deserve more. I think they deserve to know where there’s money invested,” Satrom said.

There will be limits on the transparency offered by the new website. Smith said it will not include breakdowns of what is being invested by each money manager the state contracts with to invest the Legacy Fund on its behalf. What those managers are investing in can reveal their overall investment strategy, Smith said.

“That would essentially disclose proprietary information because that’s how they make their money,” Smith said.

She said the website will allow a user to check how much of the Legacy Fund is invested in a specific holding, like stock in a company, but won’t reveal how much of that stock is owned by each money manager.

A small portion of the Legacy Fund is managed internally by the state’s investment team. Smith said the details of that team’s strategy will be treated as proprietary information as well, just as it would if an external manager were involved.

A lot of the questions about transparency are motivated by a desire to imitate the Legacy Fund’s investment strategy, she said.

Satrom is more concerned about the possibility the Legacy Fund is invested in companies engaged in practices that North Dakotans may find immoral or unethical, such as some in Russia or China, in the effort to obtain greater investment profits.

“I think North Dakotans could care less for making 7% or 10% on the investment if it’s for things that are morally objectionable,” Satrom said.

The executive director is aware some people would prefer they divest the Legacy Fund from certain types of investments. Smith said any directive to get out of a specific type of asset would have to come from the legislative advisory board that is empowered to make those decisions.

Smith cautioned the first iteration of the website that will launch this fall will not be a finished product, but will be released in time for the 2027 legislative session.

“I would expect that we’re going to get something stood up, and then we’ll have another iteration about a year later, as we learn lessons and, you know, get feedback,” Smith said. “We’ll survive session, and then we’ll get back out there again and probably do some improvements to it in the future.”

North Dakota Monitor reporter Jacob Orledge can be reached at jorledge@northdakotamonitor.com.