There is a point in a conversation with Yngve Slyngstad when he invokes Bjorn Borg, the Nordic tennis star of the 1970s. The Borg approach—make sure you don’t lose; above all, be solid—is one Mr Slyngstad has instilled in Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the organisation he has run since 2008 from within Norway’s central bank. Its target, to beat a benchmark by 0.25 percentage points a year, is modest. But meeting it has led to immodest wealth.
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OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, named a London-based hedge fund manager as its new chief executive on Thursday and said it had lost $124 billion (104 billion pounds) this year as stock markets tanked due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Norwegian-born Nicolai Tangen, until now chief executive of AKO Capital, which he established in 2005, will take the helm in September, succeeding Yngve Slyngstad who announced his resignation last year.
“Tangen has built up one of Europe’s leading investment firms and has delivered very good financial results as an international investment manager,” Norwegian central bank Governor Oeystein Olsen said while announcing the appointment.
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Norway’s clout in financial markets far outweighs its economy, which is about a 10th the size of Germany’s. The central bank’s $1 trillion investment fund plows the Nordic nation’s oil income into public securities and has become the biggest of its kind, owning about 1.4 percent of global stocks.
Yngve Slyngstad, who grew up in Asker just outside Oslo and received multiple graduate degrees before devoting himself to finance, has been chief executive officer of Norges Bank Investment Management since 2008. The 56-year-old spoke to Bloomberg Markets about what makes a good money manager, how he learns about China’s economy, his concerns regarding information monopolies, and why all investing is active. He also explains his strategy for private equity and real estate and why his fund’s potential divestment from oil company stocks has nothing to do with climate change concerns. While the fund now aims to be 70 percent in equities, he foresees that increasing in the future. “With the larger funds you have a larger buffer,” he says. “We have a higher risk tolerance.”
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