Norway’s “Trillion Dollar Man” believes America’s attitude towards failure helps the country stay ahead of its European counterparts – where employees can have a greater work-life balance but will not be as ambitious.
Nicolai Tangen heads Nordic giant Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages revenue from Norway’s oil and gas resources, with the aim of ensuring its advantages are distributed fairly between current and future Norwegian generations.
Under Tangen’s leadership since 2020 and over the past decade, the $1.6 trillion fund has all the time invested more heavily within the US than in its closer neighbors in Europe – and that isn’t any coincidence.
America’s performance, particularly by way of innovation and performance, is “worrying” in contrast to Europe, Tangen said Financial Times.
Part of it is dependent upon mindset, Tangen added, and the way error- and dangerous it’s to just accept each continent: “If you go broke in America, you get another chance.” In Europe, you’re dead,” he said.
But it goes deeper than that – there’s a difference within the “overall level of ambition,” he added. “We are not very ambitious. I should be careful when I talk about work-life balance, but Americans just work harder,” Tangen continued.
The data suggests that Tangen is correct – but only by a narrow margin. According to the European UnionIn 2022, the typical weekly working time for 22 to 65 12 months olds was 37.5 hours. The longest working weeks were recorded in Greece (41 hours per week) and Poland (40.4 hours per week). According to the contract, the Netherlands had the shortest working week at 33.2 hours, followed by Germany at 35.3 hours.
Meanwhile data from International Labor Organization, last updated in January, showed that the typical variety of hours worked by U.S. employees was 38 hours per week. However, 13% of those employees worked 49 hours or more per week, which is higher than in most European countries.
Additionally, in countries corresponding to the UK, there’s a legal requirement that employees are entitled to twenty-eight days of paid holiday per 12 months – in the event you are a full-time worker. However, within the United States, there isn’t a law requiring employees to be given paid day off in line with the Bureau of Labor Statistics The average first-year worker requires eight PTO days.
Although Tangen admires the work ethic of employees within the US, he has made it clear that he disagrees with the intense pay packages for executives. Last 12 months he said Assets that CEOs who make greater than, say, $20 million a 12 months are “enriching themselves on our behalf.”
“It’s like daylight robbery,” he added.
Norges Bank’s investment strategy has definitely followed the US trend – in any case, America is home to the entire “Magnificent 7” stocks, which formed the backbone of the stock market boom and, in line with analysts, will proceed to accomplish that.
And the support of an establishment like Norges Bank Investment Management will encourage other investors to hitch in. The group is some of the powerful financial vehicles on the planet: it’s the world’s largest single owner of world stock markets and controls 1.5% of the shares of the world’s listed corporations.
The organization also owns large swaths of luxury real estate, including a 25 percent stake in London’s Regent Street and a roughly 50 percent stake in offices in New York’s Times Square and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
Investments within the US now account for 46.9% of Norges Bank’s investments, whereas a decade ago the US made up almost 30% of its portfolio. Looking back one other 10 years, the organization’s investments within the Americas accounted for just 26.3% of all investments in 2003.
Conversely, in 2003, Norges Bank’s portfolio in Europe consisted of 59.5% European countries, by 2023 this proportion had fallen to twenty-eight.7%.
The election query
Of course, like many American investors, Tangen is closely watching the 2024 presidential election, which could rock the investment boat.
The CEO, who makes lower than $1 million a 12 months as a public servant, said there have been people throughout the organization who were nervous concerning the upcoming race, but added: “I probably shouldn’t say too much about that.” We simply spend money on great corporations for the long run in America. It can have no impact on how we allocate our capital. We have almost half of the assets in America, we’ll remain invested in America.”
Per FTMagnificent 7 holdings make up 12% of Norges Bank’s stock holdings, and Tangen adds that there’s “an argument for the big ones getting bigger.” [and] The winner takes all.”
There is, after all, a standard thread between the entire corporations within the “Magnificent 7” – and it’s Wall Street’s current favorite phrase: artificial intelligence.
Again, that is an area where Tangen said Europe was making life difficult for itself. Technology CEOs are frustrated by the red tape in Europe in comparison with the U.S., he said
Admittedly, even those that are leaders in AI within the US are calling for guardrails – just ask Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla.
“I’m not saying it’s good, but in America there is a lot of AI and no regulation, in Europe there is no AI and a lot of regulation. It’s interesting,” Tangen added.
