Norway wealth fund reflects leadership’s attitudes

Every morning after dropping his children off at school, Yngve Slyngstad heads to the fifth floor of Norway’s central bank and monitors how the world’s second-largest sovereign wealth fund is doing with its investments.

Today, it makes for very good reading. It is worth more than US$430 billion (Dh1.58 trillion) and has never been higher since its creation in 1990. The fund, in which Norway saves its oil and gas revenues from the North Sea, is so big it could pay Dubai’s estimated $80bn debt five times over. It owns more than 1 per cent of the world’s shares, is Europe’s biggest equity investor and has 1.7 per cent of all listed European companies.

You would not know it, though, by stepping into the office of Mr Slyngstad, the fund’s chief executive. In typical Nordic style, there are few outward signs of wealth — just standard office furniture — while the view from his desk overlooks Oslo’s low-rise rooftops. While Norway might be the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, there isn’t a skyscraper in sight.