The chief executive officer of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Yngve Slyngstad, is stepping down after spending the past 12 years building a $1.1 trillion behemoth.
The 56-year-old said he made the decision after the fund hit 10 trillion kroner last week, 50 years after Norway first discovered the oil that helped build the nation’s vast wealth. Slyngstad also acknowledged that he had been considering stepping back for roughly a year. He will now stay on until a successor is found in 2020, at the earliest.
“My only day of not worrying was on Friday, and in this sense it was a good time to call it quits,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday in Oslo.
While he decided to quit at a “milestone” for the fund’s value, Slyngstad warned against interpreting his move as his view that markets will soon turn.
“Had I believed that there was a financial crisis around the corner, I would have very much liked to be at the fund,” he said. “I find it both challenging and exciting to work through crises.”
An Oslo-native and self-professed Sinophile who has five academic degrees, Slyngstad has overseen a transformation in the fund’s portfolio that saw it expand into real estate, boost its stock holdings to 70%, and, more recently, announce a retreat from parts of the fossil-fuel industry. Throughout, he has underscored the fund’s long-term view on all its investments, which has allowed it to snap up stocks when others are selling.
Source: Bloomberg