Press Release - Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation

 

The 2002 Financial Management of the Nobel Foundation

At their meeting today, the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation approved the 2002 financial statements of the Foundation:

• On December 31, 2002, the market value of the Foundation's invested capital amounted to SEK 2,791 m (3,698). Total return on assets - growth in Foundation assets after adding back the year's disbursements - was -21.4 percent (-2.2).
  
  
• Net assets, that is, the market value of equity calculated as invested capital at market value adjusted for other balance sheet items, changed during the year by -24.4 percent (-5.4).
  
  
• The value of the Foundation's stock portfolio, which amounted to SEK 1,596 m at year-end, changed by -33.5 percent during 2002. The annual average for the last five years' return on assets is 3.2 percent, which exceeds a weighted comparative index by 3.4 percentage points per annum. During the same period, the MSCI World Index showed an average annual change of -0.3 percent.
  
  
• The return on the Foundation's bond portfolio during 2002 was 8.7 percent, exceeding a comparative index by 0.5 percentage points. The market value of this portfolio totaled SEK 929 m at year-end.
  
  
• Each of the 2003 Nobel Prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace) will amount to SEK 10.0 m (10.0). The total amount of all five Nobel Prizes is SEK 50.0 m. In addition, the Bank of Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will amount to SEK 10.0 m.

Changes in the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation

The Trustees of the Nobel Foundation elected the following new regular members of the Nobel Foundation's Board of Directors:

Professor Ole D. Mjøs, as the representative of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, effective from March 17, 2003. He succeeds Mr. Gunnar Berge both on the Foundation's Board and as Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Ole D. Mjøs is professor of medical physiology at the University of Tromsø.

Professor Gunnar Öquist, effective from July 1, 2003. He succeeds Professor Erling Norrby, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Gunnar Öquist is professor of plant physiology at Umeå University.

 

Stockholm, April 25, 2003

THE NOBEL FOUNDATION / Michael Sohlman, Executive Director