Oil Fund said no to Facebook

Yngve Slyngstad, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.Yngve Slyngstad, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management..Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB scanpix

Before the IPO in 2012 Facebook wanted the oil fund to be one of the investors. The Oil Fund then refused the offer, but since then they have aquired shares to the value of several billion kroner in the web giant.

The head of The Governmental Pension Fund, commonly known as the Oil Fund, said in a lengthy interview with the newspaper VG that Facebook made contact several years ago and wondered whether the Fund wanted to be an investor.
– It was not quite at the inception of Facebook, but before it was listed. We are not allowed to invest in companies until they are listed on the stock exchange, so we were able to invest when we got the request,  Yngve Slyngstad explains. He says cheerfully that the fund has not wanted to calculate how much more money the fund could have made if it had made an investment then.
After a downturn at the start  Facebook shares are currently valued at  about three times as much as they were at the IPO four years ago. Over the years, the Oil Fund has acquired just over half a percent of the shares of the company, an investment that last year was valued at roughly NOK 13.6 billion.

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today