Norway’s oil fund starts showing how it votes at shareholder meetings
The Government Pension Fund of Norway, Norway's giant $880bn (£597bn) state-owned oil fund, will today start revealing how it plans to vote at companies' shareholder meetings as part of its drive to increase transparency.
The move marks the first time the sovereign wealth fund will publish voting intentions before the shareholder meetings of a select number of firms, and for "certain fundamental issues".
As part of this, it revealed support for calls from shareholders of oil giants BP and Shell to include more information on the risks and opportunities associated with climate change in their annual reporting from 2016.
"As a long-term investor, we believe that the identification of future scenarios for climate regulation, carbon pricing, and environmental conditions is a useful tool to support strategic decision-making and we thereby support these resolutions," said Petter Johnsen, the fund's chief investment officer equity strategies.
Norway's oil fund is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, investing revenues from the country's offshore oil and gas production. It owns over one per cent of global shares and has holdings in more than 9,000 companies.
Norway's oil fund has investments in 75 countries and 47 currencies (Source: Norges-Bank)