NORWAY'S NICOLAI TANGEN RUNS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SOVEREIGN FUND. CAN HE LEVERAGE ITS ASSETS TO CHANGE BUSINESS FOR THE BETTER?

OSLO, WITH ITS neatly painted houses and serene waterfront, is not known for high drama. But in 2020, Norway's capital erupted in controversy over one spectacularly wealthy investor, a splashy event in Philadelphia-and the biggest sovereign wealth fund on the planet.

- VIVIENNE WALT

OSLO, WITH ITS neatly painted houses and serene waterfront, is not known for high drama. But in 2020, Norway’s capital erupted in controversy over one spectacularly wealthy investor, a splashy event in Philadelphia—and the biggest sovereign wealth fund on the planet.

That spring, Nicolai Tangen, the Norwegian founder of London hedge fund AKO Capital, was picked by Norway’s central bank to be the next CEO of its gargantuan oil-and-gas-financed investment fund, whose value had soared above $1 trillion. It soon emerged that months before his selection, Tangen had flown a private-planeload of guests to a gathering he had organized with his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The event featured seminars, fancy dinners, and a $1 million performance by Sting—all at Tangen’s expense. The then CEO of the oil fund, Norway’s trade minister, and the country’s attorney general had all attended.

Such finance-nerd blowouts may be standard fare on Wall Street, but they were a jolt in discreet, low-key Norway. The news ignited a media frenzy and even a parliamentary inquiry over favoritism and conflicts of interest. Above all, the affair was at odds with the country’s squeaky-clean reputation—and with the perception of Norges Bank Investment Management, or NBIM, the fund’s asset manager, as a champion of better corporate governance.

“It got very messy,” says Anja Bakken Riise, executive director of Future in Our Hands, a Norwegian environmental NGO that fiercely opposed Tangen’s appointment. “He’s quite different from what we’ve seen in previous directors.”