Hello, and welcome to this special Impact Report from Davos, where I spent the week talking to chief sustainability officers, CEOs, and other impact-oriented business leaders.
Without a doubt, the most vocal person I spoke to was Nicolai Tangen, CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. With more than $1 trillion invested in public companies all over the world, or the equivalent of about 1-2% of shares in every large publicly listed company, Tangen’s fund is one of the world’s largest investors, and a voice to be reckoned with.
Just like other asset managers, Tangen is looking for the best return on his investments. But he’s also an activist ESG investor, pushing companies to adopt net-zero targets (the “E” in ESG), limiting excessive executive pay (part of the “S” of ESG), and demanding that companies, particularly in the U.S., separate the CEO and chairman roles in their governance structure and diversify their boards (the “G” in ESG).
In an interview with me, Tangen once more took aim at the pay of his fellow CEOs, many of whom he regularly interacts with as one of the largest institutional investors in their companies. CEOs who earn more than, say, $20 million a year, he says, are “enriching themselves on our behalf.” “It’s like daylight robbery,” he told me. (As a public servant, Tangen himself earns less than $1 million a year.)
It’s a remarkably outspoken stance for a sovereign wealth fund, but Tangen and his pension fund are walking the talk. They vote at some 12,000 companies’ general assemblies. And at the companies that propose excessive executive pay packages, which many American ones do, his fund doesn’t hesitate to vote against the pay hikes. His fund also often interacts with the CEOs of the companies it invests in directly.
That led to some recent successes. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, last week announced that he would take a 40% pay cut compared to last year, landing at a still very cushy $49 million. That decision came about after Tangen’s fund, which is the eighth largest investor in Apple, last year publicly announced it would vote against the company’s proposed executive pay packages. “It is fantastic that companies like Apple half their executive pay,” Tangen told me.
On other ESG topics too, Tangen is eyeing wins in the upcoming proxy season. It’s a sign of his appreciation for the concept of stakeholder capitalism, which he said was “important” to the fund and “common sense.” But it is not a philanthropic mindset that drives him in his advocacy. “We want to make more money,” he said of his approach. “We think climate is good for business, and we also think ethics is good for business.” If the world is unhabitable because of climate change, “the value of our fund is zero.” It is why he is also pushing companies to come up with net-zero commitments. Yet it clearly frustrates Tangen that many of his fellow institutional investors, which include American firms like BlackRock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan, often don’t follow his lead and vote for many ESG issues, including limiting excessive executive pay packages. “It is surprising that other large shareholders have not been against [excessive executive pay],” he told me. The reason, he said, “is that their own salaries are too high.”
Peter Vanham
Executive Editor, Fortune Impact and Connect
@petervanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
