Nicolai Tangen pays a big price for his new gig

THE BIGGEST crisis in the 24-year history of the world’s biggest sovereign-wealth fund was defused at the very last minute. On August 24th Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) announced that Nicolai Tangen, its incoming boss, would liquidate his entire stake in AKO Capital, the $20bn hedge fund he founded. He will transfer it to AKO Foundation, a charity he set up in 2013. He will also sell his personal investments and park the proceeds in a bank account. Although Mr Tangen had previously ruled out selling up, he gave in to mounting political pressure in order to begin what he has called his “dream job” on September 1st.

The controversy, which has lasted months, has probably done most damage to the reputation of the central bank. (NBIM, which has holdings worth around 10trn Norwegian kroner, or $1trn, sits within it.) The bank broke “guidelines, rules and laws” when it selected Mr Tangen, according to the main supervisor of NBIM. His name never appeared on the bank’s official list of candidates for the fund’s top job, though he had been considered a serious contender for months. And the central bank may not have given enough thought to how to resolve potential conflicts of interest; Mr Tangen’s old fund holds shares in some of the same companies as NBIM.

Mr Tangen had planned to mitigate potential conflicts of...