In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen · Oct 9, 2026
With Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management · Marthe Skaar, Chief of Communications and External Relations at Norges Bank Investment Management
Photo: Birgit Fostervold, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nicolai Tangen said his fund generally has to stay invested in companies for the long term, while the rights attached to those shares have weakened in many countries over the last few years.
A stock picker such as John Armitage of Egerton Capital can sell a company when he stops trusting it. Norway's wealth fund cannot, so it depends on its votes and its access to boards, and Tangen said both are being diminished.
"And the problem is that shareholder rights have deteriorated pretty sharply over the last few years." — Nicolai Tangen
Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway's sovereign wealth fund, on In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen. He worked for Armitage at Egerton for five years and said he could not have set up his own hedge fund firm, AKO Capital, without him. This Friday Wrap-Up looks back at that week's interview with Armitage.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 9 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
Without Armitage's backing there would have been no AKO Capital, Tangen said
An investor starting a fund needs a reference who tells others to back him with money
Operating leverage was the thing Armitage taught him to study most: how much of each additional sale a company keeps as profit
The great investors on the podcast share one trait: they are still very humble after years of success
AI is probably arbitraging away many of the chances to beat the market, he said
Permanent capital is better on balance, he said, though Armitage calls it a trap
Founder shares with many votes per share have weakened shareholder rights
Countries competing for listings bend their rules, and he named Amsterdam
He starts every day with a gratitude ritual before he looks at his phone
1. A Formative Former Boss
Marthe Skaar, NBIM's chief of communications, opened by saying that week's episode with John Armitage was trending, and that strong investment episodes are rare.
"And then this person in particular, John Armitage, is extremely well known in the investment world, but not so famous outside the investment world." — Marthe Skaar
Tangen said Armitage ranks second only to his wife in importance in his life
"He is one of the most important people in my life, I would say next to my wife." — Nicolai Tangen
Armitage was his boss for five years. Before that, when Tangen was a sell-side analyst writing research on companies for fund managers, Armitage was his largest client. Tangen traveled with him across Scandinavia and sat in on company meetings.
"He was my largest client." — Nicolai Tangen
"So he was totally formative for me as an investor and me as an analyst and really taught me how to look at companies and how to analyze companies." — Nicolai Tangen
