Europeans are much less formidable and do not work as laborious as People, mentioned Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund.
“There is a mindset subject when it comes to acceptance of errors and dangers. You go bust in America, you get one other probability. In Europe, you are useless,” Tangen instructed The Monetary Instances in an interview revealed on Wednesday.
“We’re not very formidable,” Tangen added. “I needs to be cautious about speaking about work-life stability, however the People simply work more durable.”
Tangen made these remarks as he gave an outline of his agency’s push towards investments within the US, which now make up half of the equities held by Norges Financial institution.
Norges Financial institution is accountable for Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which manages income from the nation’s large oil and fuel reserves and holds some $1.6 trillion in belongings.
Tangen mentioned his agency is watching the US 2024 elections intently and instructed the FT that it’s involved in regards to the potential outcomes, although he declined to share extra.
“We simply spend money on America in nice corporations for the long run. It will not have any implications for the way we allocate our capital,” he mentioned of the election, per the FT. “We’ve practically half the belongings in America, we are going to keep invested in America.”
The CEO added that US shares have been beating Europe’s as a result of American corporations are innovating and rising know-how sooner than their European counterparts, telling the FT that he felt the pattern is “worrisome.”
About 71% of Norges Financial institution’s holdings are in equities, with massive stakes in US corporations, together with $19.2 billion in Alphabet, $17.4 billion in Amazon, and $33 billion in Apple.
Norges Financial institution is the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund and the most important single proprietor within the international inventory market. The agency invests in 72 international locations and is estimated to personal 1.5% of all shares worldwide.
It is true that People, on common, work longer hours than their European counterparts, in accordance with knowledge collected from 2019 to 2022 by the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Growth.
The common polled US employee mentioned they labored 1,811 hours a 12 months, or about 35 hours per week, in comparison with a mean of 1,571 hours a 12 months amongst employees in European Union international locations. That is additionally in comparison with a complete common of 1,752 hours a 12 months documented by the OECD.
UK staff mentioned in the identical survey that they labored 1,532 hours a 12 months, whereas German staff say they’ve labored the least out of all OECD international locations — at a mean of 1,341 hours a 12 months, or about 26 hours per week.
