Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, on Friday called for a cap on executive pay and fiscal transparency at the companies in which it invests, further buffing its reputation as an ethical investor.
In every company, “the board should ... disclose a ceiling for total remuneration for the coming year” for the chief executive, Norway’s central bank, which manages the fund built on the country’s oil revenues, said in a new policy document.
In an era of fat-cat salaries that have drawn widespread criticism, the stance is all the more significant given that the fund holds stakes in about 9,000 companies worldwide, representing 1.3 percent of the global market capitalization.
With its weight and its often-praised management requirements on ethics and transparency, the Scandinavian fund often sets the bar for investment funds worldwide.
For many years, the Norwegian wealth fund had little to say about executive pay, but recently it has begun to play a more active role.
Last year, it voted against the executive pay policies at companies including Alphabet Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Sanofi SA, according to the Financial Times.
“We are not in a position any longer as investors to say that this is an issue we are not going to have a view on,” the fund’s director, Yngve Slyngstad, told the newspaper, noting that the principle of “say on pay” was now spreading in a number of countries.
The fund’s policy document said that in order to align a CEO’s interests with those of shareholders, “a substantial proportion of total annual remuneration should be provided as shares that are locked in for at least five and preferably 10 years, regardless of resignation or retirement,” and without any conditions based on a company’s performance.
In another document published on Friday, Norway’s central bank also called on companies to implement fiscal transparency.
“Taxes should be paid where economic value is generated,” it said, expressing clear opposition to so-called fiscal optimization, where companies declare their profits in countries with lower taxes.
The Norwegian fund, worth about 7.87 trillion kroner (US$908.8 billion) at the end of last month, grew by 298 billion kroner in the first quarter, its third-best quarterly performance in its 20 year history.
Ethical rules already prohibit the fund from investing in companies accused of serious violations of human rights, the use of child labor or serious environmental damage, as well as in tobacco companies and manufacturers of “particularly inhumane” weapons.
In line with a 2015 vote in Norway’s parliament, the fund cannot invest in mining or energy companies where coal represents more than 30 percent of their business — a somewhat paradoxical stance for a fund bankrolled by Norway’s oil revenues.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last