External mandates

We award investment mandates to external equity managers with expertise in specific markets. The mandates are in markets and segments where it is not expedient to build internal expertise and the potential for excess returns is considerable. The mandates typically cover investments in emerging markets and small-capitalisation companies in developed markets. In some markets, we also believe that external managers will reduce the risk of our investments by avoiding certain companies with problematic business models and weak corporate governance.

The fund had 523 billion kroner, or 4.2 percent of its capital, under external management at the end of 2021, compared with 512 billion kroner at the start of the year. A total of 98 mandates were managed externally by 89 organisations. These included 70 country-specific mandates for investments in emerging and frontier equity markets and 28 mandates for investments in developed equity markets.