Norwegian state fund targets corporate greed

 For a long time, people have criticised company directors for receiving huge fees and inflation-beating share deals while the averaged wages of working people, especially those in the public sector continue to be depressed. So far, nothing has been done because supposedly independent remuneration committees are staffed by other members of a charmed circle resulting in a mutual back-scratching exercise. This attitude seems also to dominate the big City pension funds.

It takes an outsider, and one with muscle, to take action. Norway's sovereign wealth funds, based on her North Sea oil and gas finds, are estimated to account for 1.4% of investment world-wide. Now, as reported by BBC Business News and City Wire.

State oil fund Norges Bank Investment Management is to turn up the pressure on corporate governance, said CEO Nicolai Tangen, speaking at the De Wet Van der Spuy event.

Tangen criticised the greedy behaviour of some top managers at asset management firms and said they need to be called out: ‘Executive pay and corporate greed has just reached a level that is really unhealthy.

‘That is why they are not so vocal. If you are in charge of an asset management organisation, and you make an absolute killing yourself, you are not going to criticise the other CEOs.

‘We as NBIM can become louder, and I think we will. We can vote against resolutions more often if we have different expectations of behaviour’, Tangen said.