translated from Spanish: Yngve Slyngstad, the head of the sovereign wealth Fund in the world who believes that his salary is unfairly high

When Yngve Slyngstad invest, the market took note.
This 56 year old Norwegian, director Executive of the world’s largest sovereign wealth Fund, is a man out of the ordinary in the corporate world.
Under the command of Norges Bank Investment Management – that manages the Norwegian State Fund of a billion dollars, has no Secretary, personally organizes its meetings and travel in economy class.
Become a kind of “green activist” in the financial world (despite the fact that paradoxically the sovereign Fund’s assets was made with the proceeds of the Norwegian oil industry), Slyngstad has publicly attacked the overpayment of the directors business executives and has refused to invest in companies that do not meet high ethical and environmental standards.
“We hope that all the companies where we invest take effective anti-corruption measures,” warned the Executive.
Several times he has called to transparency in payment of taxes and that the companies pay taxes in the country where generating the wealth.
And on his own salary (close to the US$ 800,000 per year), has publicly stated that it is “unfairly high”, but it is well below the salary that receive maximum heads of investment funds in the world.
With four master’s degrees in law, business, economics and political science, Slyngstad is known for achieving what is proposed, even in unconventional way, as when he was six months only in a cabin in the Arctic studying German.
The Fund does not invest in Walmart the sovereign wealth Fund, Slyngstad is in charge – accumulating capital for future generations of Norwegians – feeds currently incomes generated by your investment portfolio, with interests in nearly 9,000 companiasen worldwide and heritage invested in buying debt of many countries.
In fact, the 1.4% of all companies publicly traded in the world, a power that allows the Norwegians reject investments in firms that are not of your liking.
Some call it “the trillion-dollar man”. For example, does not invest in large companies such as giant retail Walmart, on the grounds that it has not respected the human rights of the people, or Duke Energy and Posco, for causing “severe damage” to the environment.
“In some cases we have distanced itself from good investments, only because we know that they can generate things that do not like us”, Slyngstad said in an interview in the Financial Times .
“I have said many times that I attracted the kind of investments we make because it is a key field in everything that is happening in society, whether in geopolitics, or small functional technology at the corner of economic activity”.
“It is a very challenging balancing act to make something that is pure global financial capitalism, work in a transparent, equal and democratic society,” he said.
What happens with women?
In October of last year, the Norwegian sovereign wealth Fund published three documents expressing their point of view with respect to what should be the composition of the boards of companies.
Among the approaches, is the idea that CEOs of companies may not be at the same time the Chairmen of the Board of Directors and that at least two members of the Board must have professional experience in the area of business of the firm.
The sovereign wealth Fund has not acted on the participation of women on boards of companies. But none of the documents refers to the increase in women’s representation in the directory.
“We have thought much about the topic, we have discussed it, but we are not ready to publish a final version,” Slyngstad said in statements to the press.
In fact, explained that there are two major themes that could be seen as “an export of Nordic values”: the wages that are paid to CEOs and female participation in the directories.
And although the ideas of Slyngstad and much of the establishment Norwegian these issues are known, another thing is the sovereign wealth Fund to put it in writing.
However, the issue of the balance of gender and policies in favour of diversity, will be part of the official position of the Fund in the future.
“It is natural for an investor like us to give to know our position at some point”, said Slyngstad.
More investment in Saudi Arabia something that has generated controversy in the local press, is the Executive announcement of that sovereign wealth Fund plans to increase its investments in Saudi Arabia, given the harsh criticism made by international organizations to the Government of that country respect for human rights.
“We invest in companies, not countries,” Slyngstad said.
Norway Saudi investments have been criticized by some.” We will not change our investments in businesses located in Saudi Arabia by political situations”, he added.
“Generally speaking, we are not to evaluate political risks”, he said.
Among the thousands of companies where the Fund invests (with information at the end of 2018), their biggest bets are not without controversy, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nestlé and Royal Dutch Shell.
An investment portfolio that, apart from the spikes and sudden losses in the stock market, has an eye on the performance titles can have on a 30 year horizon.
Slyngstad, who has spent more than one decade in office, has said that he has no plans of splitting.