He is chief executive of Norges Bank Investment Management, referred to outside the country as Norges. In Norway, they call it Oljefondet – the oil fund. In 1969, Norway found oil in the North Sea. Lots of oil. In order to avoid corruption and share the wealth, the Norwegian government put the first 2bn Norwegian kroner (equivalent to $310m at the time in 1996) of oil and gas revenues into a sovereign wealth fund. Today, it’s worth $2.1tn and owns shares in nearly 9,000 companies, a stakeholder in business everywhere.
