Norway’s likely winner of its looming elections is floating the idea of splitting the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund in two, as the $720bn oil fund grapples with the challenges of growing ever bigger.

Such a move would be the most radical change to the oil fund since it was set up more than two decades ago to manage Norway’s oil and gas revenues. At the start, few expected the fund to receive much money but it has grown rapidly in recent years on the back of rising oil revenues and is expected to reach $1tn by the end of the decade, making it by far the largest sovereign wealth fund.

Jan Tore Sanner, deputy leader of the Norwegian Conservative party, told the Financial Times that if the party retakes power in September, he would like to establish an expert group to see if the fund – which is so large it owns an average 1.25 per cent of every listed company in the world – should be broken up. “We want to have a discussion on how we organise the fund and its structure in the future. Should we have one fund or maybe two funds?” he said.