Norway Wealth Fund CEO Tangen Tests Positive for Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) -- Nicolai Tangen, the chief executive officer of Norway’s $1.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, has tested positive for the coronavirus.

In an update on his LinkedIn page, the 54-year-old CEO said he took a test on Wednesday afternoon, “after feeling a bit under the weather, but my symptoms are mild.”

Tangen says he’s self-isolating in his apartment in Oslo, from where he’ll be working the next couple of weeks. The CEO, who’s been running the wealth fund since September after leaving a job as a London-based hedge fund manager, said he wasn’t sure where he might have caught the virus.

“Some of my closest colleagues who have been in meetings with me have been put in quarantine,” he said. “Reports so far are that they all feel ok.”

Among those affected by Tangen’s diagnosis are Oystein Olsen, the governor of Norway’s central bank, which manages the wealth fund. He will now go into a self-imposed quarantine, the bank said.

Norway has stood out as a country that’s fared a lot better than most in containing the pandemic. The death rate per 100,000 is about 6, less than a tenth that in neighboring Sweden. As of Thursday, Norway’s daily new case count was 551.

The Norwegian economy is also likely to suffer less from the pandemic than others, thanks in large part to the cushion provided by its wealth fund, which is the world’s biggest.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.