Opinion
Tangen: Climate change is a financial risk as apolitical as gravity
“The climate is a financial risk, and when people politicize and say that climate is a political question, I just don't get it. To me, climate is as political as gravity.”
Opinion
Tangen: Exploiting oil and gas resources is not unethical
“I don't think it's unethical to exploit your oil and gas resources. Not at all. It's a very important part of what makes the world tick.”
Insight
Tangen: Mega-funds must track indices because governance cannot survive big relative losses
“The problem is that you are being kicked out at the worst possible time, and typically then you would liquidate the positions and crystallize losses which shouldn't be crystallized. And that is why it's important to be close to index, because a governance stru…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tangen: Private equity market faces distress and will not improve soon
“Private equity companies are not having a good time. Fundraising is difficult. Exits are difficult. Financing is not easy. You have a lot of debt coming up to renewals. This market is not great. And I don't think it's going to be great for some time.”
Disclosure
Tangen: AKO Capital trained analysts using police interrogation frameworks
“When I set up AKO, I thought, you know what, we probably can get more out of companies than other people. And we started to train the analysts in interview technique or interrogation or whatever you call it. Got the leading interrogator from the Norwegian poli…”
Insight
Tangen: Investors must maximize market exposure during peak fear
“Because you need to have max exposure when the world looks the worst. When you are at the bottom and you are the most afraid, and you can hardly sleep, that's when you need to take your protection away. It's very counterintuitive, and it's very, very tough.”
Insight
Tangen: CEOs prefer discussing corporate culture over quarterly performance
“They don't like to sit there and talk about the next quarter. They couldn't give it to us. They're not interested in it. They think it's a waste of the time. They think you are a boring guy. They want to talk about corporate culture. They want to talk about wh…”
Assertion Supported
Tangen: NBIM runs $1.3T with 650 staff, a third of peer size
“It's roughly a third of the size of what similar institutions would be given the asset size. We are 650 people, 650 people running 1.3 trillion.”
Disclosure
Tangen: NBIM researches fewer than 1,000 of its 9,000 holdings
“We do not research 9000 companies. We research Less than a thousand. But we do research them very well.”
Disclosure
Tangen: NBIM is preparing a recommendation to add private equity
“Private equity has not been a part of the mandate we have, and we are in active conversation with the Ministry of Finance to Potentially get that in, and this is a decision by the board, and we will soon make our recommendation, and then we see whether we get …”
Disclosure
Tangen: NBIM uses AI for capital deployment timing, not stock picking
“So we don't really use it to pick investments. We use it to time the deployment of capital. When we get money into the fund, we use it for that timing. And we use it also now increasingly to minimize trading.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tangen: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang works from 5 AM until bedtime
“And I asked Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, how much do you work?
And he said, Nikolai, there is hard work, and then there is insanely hard work.
So I said, where are you?
I work insanely hard.
I work from five in the morning until I go to bed.
I work every day.
I wor…”
Assertion Supported
Tangen: NBIM owns 1.5% of global equities and 2.7% of European companies
“The biggest single shareholder in the world, one and a half percent of all the equities worldwide in 9000 companies. In Europe, we own 2.7% of all companies.”
Assertion Supported
Tangen: 3% sovereign wealth fund payout covers over 20% of Norway's budget
“Even with three percent of the fund being spent, that is now more than 20% of the Norwegian budget.”
Assertion Supported
Tangen: NBIM is the only major fund of its type avoiding private equity
“And also, we are the only large fund in the world of our type who are not doing it.”
Assertion Supported
NBIM pre-announces proxy voting intentions five days before AGMs
“We announce voting intentions five days ahead of time so that everybody in the world can see how we vote.”
Assertion Contradicted
Tangen: 650 NBIM staff can speak publicly, up from four
“In the past, there were four people who could talk on behalf of the fund. Now, 650 people can talk on behalf of the fund.”
Assertion Supported
Tangen: Norway's oil fund grew from 2 billion to 15 trillion kroner
“First deposit, two billion Norwegian kroner, has grown to fifteen thousand billion.”
Disclosure
Tangen: Shorter bond duration saved NBIM significant money in recent years
“So we did, for instance, have a shorter duration than the market over the last few years. That's saved us quite a bit of money.”
Disclosure
Tangen: NBIM runs 5% of assets with external managers in developing markets
“We run five percent of the assets with external managers, and that's the assets that we have in developing markets.”
Disclosure
Tangen: NBIM has roughly 100 external manager relationships
“We have roughly a hundred relationships, so we spread it out.”
Assertion Partly supported
NBIM votes at 12,000 AGMs and on 120,000 proposals annually
“We vote at 12,000 AGMs every year, 120,000 proposals.”
Nicolai Tangen