Norway wealth fund may invest in nuclear weapon makers

Norway's sovereign wealth fund may again be allowed to invest in some companies that make nuclear weapons under recommendations presented Thursday.

The fund, the world's largest with more than $2.2 trillion in assets, currently excludes 14 companies because they develop or make nuclear weapons or their components. The excluded companies include Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Safran.

The Norwegian government ordered a review of the fund's ethical guidelines after criticism of its investments in groups accused of playing a role in the war in Gaza. A commission chaired by former central bank governor Svein Gjedrem recommended that the fund could invest in nuclear arms makers based in a nuclear-weapon state under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and allied with Norway.

Gjedrem said the change would mean several British, French and American arms manufacturers would be brought back into the fund.

Other exclusion criteria, including for biological and chemical weapons, landmines, cluster bombs, coal extraction, tobacco and cannabis, would remain unchanged under the recommendations.

The commission also proposed changes to the Ethics Council, the independent body that assesses whether companies risk serious violations of the fund's ethical standards. The council would no longer be able to directly recommend excluding companies from the portfolio.

Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, a former NATO secretary general, noted what he called “the paradox” that the fund cannot invest in companies that could be crucial for Norway's security, at a time when Russia is increasingly threatening to use nuclear weapons and China is expanding its arsenal.

The recommendations must go through a broad consultation before the government presents its conclusions to parliament for a vote next spring. Some parties on the left have criticised the report, with one Green official calling it “utterly senseless”.

The fund is invested in more than 7,000 companies worldwide and owns about 1.5% of all listed companies globally in aggregate.