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It s tough for a small democracy to run the world s biggest sovereign-wealth
fund
TWO decades after Norway s government paid a first deposit into its
sovereign-wealth fund, the country is learning how to manage a behemoth. The
vehicle, which is used to invest abroad the proceeds of Norway s oil and gas
sales, has amassed a bigger fortune than anyone expected, thanks to previous,
bumper oil prices. As the direct benefits of oil decline around 46% of Norway s
expected total haul of oil and gas is gone the relative importance of the fund
will grow. Annual revenues from it now regularly exceed income from oil sales.
This week the Pension Fund Global was worth Nkr7.3 trillion ($882 billion),
more than double national GDP. No sovereign-wealth fund is bigger (see chart).
It owns over 2% of all listed shares in Europe and over 1% globally. Its
largest holdings are in Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Nestl , among 9,000-odd
firms in 78 countries.
In designing the fund, Norway got a lot right. Its independence is not
constitutionally guaranteed, but it is protected as a separate unit within the
central bank, overseen by the finance ministry and monitored by parliament. It
is run frugally and transparently; every investment it makes is detailed
online.
Other funds might copy those structures, but would struggle to mimic the Nordic
values that underpin them. Yngve Slyngstad, its boss, says growth came faster
than anyone had envisaged , and that a culture of political trust made it
uncontroversial to save as much as possible. A budgetary rule stops the
government from drawing down more than the fund s expected annual returns (set
at 4% a year). The capital, in theory, is never touched. Martin Skancke, who
used to oversee the fund s operations from the finance ministry, attributes the
trust the institution enjoys to relatively high levels of equality and cultural
homogeneity. It also helps that many rural areas recall poverty just two
generations ago.
Yet expectations of the fund may change as Norway itself does. Tesla-driving
Norwegians are now less shy about flaunting their wealth. Those under 50 have
known only a world in which the 5.2m Norwegians are among its wealthiest
people. Immigration is higher than ever, especially after an influx of Syrian
refugees.
Progress, a populist, anti-immigrant party, has long wanted more oil cash spent
at home. As a junior coalition partner since 2013, in charge of the finance
ministry, it has curbed its urge to splurge. But in the first half of this year
the government for the first time took more from the fund than it deposited
from its oil revenues: a net withdrawal of Nkr45 billion. Recent low returns
meant that the fund s capital fell slightly, too.
It is too early to see any long-term trend, but some are worried. It is very
hard to have a huge sum of money at the bedside and to tighten your belt at the
same time, says someone close to the fund. Mr Slyngstad is sanguine but
acknowledges that few democracies sustain sovereign-wealth funds: politicians
always prefer higher spending and lower taxes. He denies ever feeling political
pressure. But others appetites are evidently growing if not to spend more,
then to use the fund differently. One complaint is that relatively modest
dollar returns on investments (5.5% a year since 1998) reflect too much caution
among those who guide the fund s strategy.
Sony Kapoor, a leading critic of the fund, argues that it screwed up in the
past decade by failing to invest in emerging markets that were hungry for
capital, and by ignoring unlisted assets, such as infrastructure. He says the
fund missed out on $100 billion to $150 billion as a result. Worse, he says,
its supposed caution in fact exposed it to high risk by concentrating its
assets in rich economies.
Defenders of the fund s strategy dismiss this criticism, arguing poorer
countries often offer too few suitable, big investment opportunities. But this
is not the only criticism from Mr Kapoor and others. In a democracy, morality
counts. The ethics of investment are debated ever more hotly. Politicians, NGOs
and others increasingly say moral concerns should outweigh other concerns, and
even profits.
The fund refuses to invest in firms with products deemed unethical, such as
tobacco or many sorts of weapons. It is also becoming more activist in its
approach to its portfolio, divesting from those seen as grossly corrupt and
flagging concerns over companies misuse of water and energy, or any risk that
they benefit from child labour.
It is also getting more outspoken on subjects like high executive pay. It has
said it will join class-action lawsuits against Volkswagen over the firm s
fiddling of fuel-emissions results. The fund has been instructed by parliament
to help fight climate change. So 1% of its portfolio is in firms deemed to be
green. It has divested from heavy polluters, firms involved in deforestation
and, this year, from coal companies.
Such restrictions create dilemmas. The fund still invests in oil, for example
Royal Dutch Shell is one of its biggest holdings. Its ethical advisers argue
that it can achieve more by promoting good practices within oil firms. But a
former adviser admits the fund s climate-change brief makes such investments a
paradox .
In effect, the fund is exporting Norwegian values as well as capital. In the
future it could turn against more products sugar and fast-food, say, because of
obesity. So far the fund s managers see no serious financial cost from
blacklisting 100 or so companies. But they do not deny that some ethical
decisions do entail trade-offs. Their own shareholders, the Norwegians
themselves, may not always let them do what is right rather than what pays.