by Gwladys Fouche
ARENDAL, Norway (Reuters) – The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, the world’s largest investment fund with a capital of 1.4 trillion dollars (1.290 billion euros), will encourage the companies in which it invests to include more women in the board and cut excessive executive compensation, according to a senior fund official.
The initiative comes as the fund takes stock of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments. On Wednesday, he published an initial assessment of the decisions voted on at general meetings of shareholders since the start of the year.
“We are concerned. The top earners are getting higher and from the numbers we’ve seen, the top earners are increasing more than the median of earnings and more than inflation,” said Carine Smith Ihenacho. , head of governance and compliance for the fund, in an interview with Reuters.
Since the start of the year, the fund has voted against one in ten chief executive pay, including that of Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Apple’s Tim Cook and PepsiCo’s Ramon Laguarta, according to a report by the Funds.
The sovereign wealth fund has stakes in around 9,200 companies worldwide, or 1.5% of all publicly traded shares, and has been campaigning since 2021 to increase the number of women on company boards. which would be directly correlated to better governance.
“This year, we said (to companies): ‘if you don’t even have a single woman on the board, we will vote against you.’ We will intensify this approach next year,” said Carine Smith Ihenacho. .
However, she added that a roadmap for the application of these directives has not yet been established.
(Report Gwladys Fouche in Arendal; French version Mariana Abreu, editing by Kate Entringer)
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