NEWS

Then they got an email from their boss. Under no circumstances were they to be seen drinking champagne in the VIP tribune at the Monaco Grand Prix.

“We have high expectations in terms of ethical standards, also for ourselves,” says Yngve Slyngstad, the head of the fund, which invests $163,000 of oil and gas wealth for each man, woman and child in Norway. “We cannot behave in a way that makes people doubt that we have their best interests at heart,” he told Reuters last August. “Our duty as an asset manager is to manage the people’s money, public money. This means there is a particular responsibility on us.”

Norway has a population slightly larger than the state of South Carolina but its government-run wealth fund has $833 billion in assets, making it one of the largest investors in the world. It owns 1.25 percent of all the shares worldwide, 2.5 percent in Europe, and it has a unique ethical mandate. That sees it avoid companies such as Walmart, which Norway deemed to have breached “human rights and labor rights.”