Press release from the Nobel Foundation

The Nobel Foundation’s 2021 asset management and earnings

29 April 2022 View in Swedish

The market value of the Nobel Foundation’s total invested capital amount­ed to SEK 6,103 m (5,176) at the end of 2021. Excluding the value of the Foundation’s directly owned properties, investment capital amounted to SEK 5,720 m (4,882) at the end of the year. This generated a return of +18.4 (+8.5) per cent during 2021.

The Nobel Foundation is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the intentions of the will of Alfred Nobel are fulfilled. The main mission of the Foundation is to manage the assets left behind by Nobel, as well as the extensive intellectual property related to the Nobel Prize.

The institutions that Alfred Nobel designated in his will to select laureates choose the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation. The most important task of the Trustees is to appoint the Nobel Foundation’s Board of Directors and to examine the Nobel Foundation’s financial statements. At the meeting of the Trustees on Friday, 29 April 2022, the Nobel Foundation’s 2021 financial statements were presented.

The objective of the Nobel Foundation’s investment activities is to achieve a sufficiently high return over time to maintain the financial base of the Nobel Prize and guarantee the independence of the work of the Prize Com­mittees in selecting the laureates. In addition, the Nobel Foundation aims to manage its assets in a way that considers long-term sustainable development and to otherwise follow good ethical principles in its investment activities.

During 2021, the Nobel Foundation continued its work with responsible investments, mainly by reducing holdings related to fossil fuels via its asset managers and in the public equity portfolio completely divesting compa­nies that produce oil.

Investment capital exposure was 55 (48) per cent equity funds, 8 (5) per cent property funds, 16 (15) per cent fixed income assets and cash, 24 (28) per cent alternative assets and −2 (4) per cent accrued currency hedging gains.

Today the 2022 prize amount was established by the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors at SEK 10 million per prize category.

The Nobel Foundation’s Board of Directors as of 1 May 2022

Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin, Chairman

Professor Hans Ellegren, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Mr Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation

Professor Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy

Mr Tomas Nicolin, MSc

Professor Thomas Perlmann, Secretary of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet
and of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine

Mrs Berit Reiss-Andersen, Attorney, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Deputy members

Professor Ulf Danielsson, Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physics

Professor Peter Brzezinski, Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry

Other information

For the Nobel Foundation’s guidelines concerning responsible investments, click here.

The Nobel Foundation’s Annual Report for 2021 and an Annual Review are found here.

Nobel Foundation

The Nobel Foundation is a private foundation established in 1900 on the basis of the will of Alfred Nobel and the founding statutes promulgated in connection with the will. Its primary purpose is to ensure that the intentions of the will of Alfred Nobel are fulfilled. The Foundation is responsible for ensuring that the assets made available for awarding the Nobel Prize are managed in such a way as to safeguard the economic base of the Prize in a long-term perspective and guarantee the independence of the prize-awarding institutions in their work of selecting Laureates. The Nobel Foundation is also entrusted with managing and carefully developing the trademarks and intangible assets that have been built up during the more than century-long history of the Nobel Prize.

Contacts
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