Norway’s $2 Trillion Wealth Fund Is Sounding a Warning on Iran |
On the last Friday of February, Nicolai Tangen, boss of Norway’s $2.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, wrapped up his first visit to the Middle East, taking in the vibrant expat magnets of Dubai and Saudi Arabia’s pharaonic infrastructure ambitions. “We were just struck by how dynamic the area was,” Tangen told me in an interview in Paris this week. Hours after his departure, the region erupted in a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions and is stoking a global energy crisis.
The 59-year-old former hedge fund manager isn’t ready to write off the Gulf’s oil-wealth clout just yet — “it’s too early to say” — but the general sense of market complacency about what’s happening in the region has left a mark. Norges Bank Investment Management is now planning for all sorts of potentially bleak scenarios as global economic resilience is tested. And as the world’s largest sovereign fund, it’s worth a hearing. It has about 1.5% of all listed shares in its portfolio; top holdings include Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc.