Tangen: 'Italia has good companies. We will still invest in banks, luxury and BTPs'
For the first time, the CEO of Norges Bank speaks: optimism on AI and markets, 22 billion dollars placed on Italia, which now enjoys stability
The headquarters of the Norwegian Central Bank is a modern but austere building that occupies an entire block: curiously enough, the entrance is a small brass armoured door that does not do justice to the Scandinavian elegance of the interiors, from the 1970s. Here, perhaps more than at Palazzo Chigi, a large slice of Italia's financial stability is at stake on the international markets: with an exposure of around USD 22 billion, Norges Bank is the largest European investor in the country, ranging from Btp bonds, bought in large quantities, to the largest listed Italian companies: Unicredit, Intesa, Eni, Enel, Poste, Essilux.
This building holds $2 trillion worth of holdings: these are the assets of the investment fund, which has 7,000 holdings in companies in 60 countries around the world. Prominent in the immense portfolio are stakes of over 1% in Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, i.e. the big technology giants and the world's top three companies by market capitalisation.
From the office on the top floor, the attic windows open onto Oslo and the spire of the cathedral's bell tower towers above. On a winter's morning, the thermometer in the capital of Norway reads 11 degrees below zero: a nation younger than Italia, born in the early 1900s after a century of Swedish domination, and with just 5 million inhabitants, Norway has entered the Olympus of wealthy countries in just a few decades, since 1969, the year of the discovery of the Ekofisk oil basin on the North Sea. Oil has enabled the accumulation of the billions that Norges invests.
The man who administers the largest sovereign wealth fund in the West on behalf of the Norwegian state is called Nicolai Tangen and has a passion for Italia, where he loves sailing to Stromboli and drinking southern white wines. A thousand-year-old bond unites the two countries: the first ever mention of the history of the country that was to become Norway 20 centuries later belongs to the Latin historian Tacitus, who, under Emperor Nero, first spoke of the Sami tribe, which still lives towards the Arctic Circle.
During the truly dark ages of the Dark Ages, the Vikings became the hegemonic power in Europe, terrorising everyone when they set sail on their Drakkar, the long, thin ships: the Normans, Italianisation of norsemen, the men of the north, descendants of the early Norwegians, arrived as far as Sicily, giving rise to a flourishing culture. The bank itself is located in the centre, when it was still called Cristiania in honour of the Danish king Christian IV, on Renaissance urban planning principles. More recently, Italy's Renzo Piano designed Oslo's most avant-garde building, the Astrup Fearnely Museum, which occupies a small pedestrian island in the harbour.
