Global Investment Funds: How Does Their Human Capital Compare?
My previous articles have focussed on analyzing startups and comparing their human capital to potential competitors in order to analyze M&A opportunities. However, I’ve often referenced the ability of Osterus to be used as a tool for benchmarking.
In this article I will analyze the human capital within two investment funds from across the opposite sides of the world and benchmark them against one another.
Workforce Comparison: Norges Bank Investment Management vs Kuwait Investment Authority
The two investment firms we will be looking at are Norges Bank Investment Management and the Kuwait Investment Authority. We will take a closer look at The Kuwait Investment Authority, which is Kuwait’s largest sovereign wealth fund, managing body, specializing in local and foreign investment. Founded in 1953, it is the world’s oldest sovereign wealth fund.
Norges Bank, which encompasses the Noreges Bank as the central bank of Norway. Apart from having traditional central bank responsibilities, such as financial stability and price stability, it manages the Government Pension Fund of Norway, a stabilization fund that is currently the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.
These investment funds represent in total 2100 Billion USD and the Norwegian Investment fund a staggering: 1400 Billion or 1.4 trillion vs the Kuwait Investment fund 700 Billion USD.
The Norwegian fund is in the lead when it comes to assets, but let’s try to understand who is in the lead when it comes to its people. In addition, we’ll be shedding light on the value of the employees that run the organization.
Norges Bank is just over 100 years older than the Kuwait Investment Authority and both operate in close conjunction with the state. Indeed, at Norges Bank all Executive Board appointments are made by the King of Norway himself.
Overall, Norges bank hires more mature employees. On average, Norges Bank employees have longer previous work experience, have worked at more companies and have held more job titles prior to joining the bank. This could be due to differences in how easy changing jobs is and how the number of previous employers is viewed between Kuwait and Norway.
The number of previous companies is significantly different between the two with employees at Norges having worked at almost 3.5x the number of companies that employees at the Kuwait Investment Authority have worked at. This could indicate a difference in strategy or focus between the two investment banks. It could be that the Kuwait Investment Authority are hyper focused on one area, whereas the Norges Investment Authority is looking for expertise from a number of different industries. It could also be slightly skewed by the number of profiles analyzed in this data set.
What is also interesting in this section is the current employment retention. We see here that the Kuwait Investment Authority keeps employees for nearly twice as long as Norges Bank. It’s clear that the Kuwait Investment Authority places an enormous amount of focus and effort on HR and their culture at work.
This can be seen not only by how long people stay, but also by the average experience of HR employees at the Kuwait Investment Authority. HR employees in Kuwait have over 4 times the amount of experience that their counterparts in the Nordics do. This, along with the heightened experience in management and a larger set of experienced Board members all points to the Kuwait Investment Authority being driven by creating an exceptional culture and learning from experienced professionals.
The current employee distribution by department doesn’t vary when it comes to the two largest employment groups. Both banks have a large number of Data Science and Analytics employees followed by general managers. However, after these two segments the companies diverge. Norges has recruited heavily for Software Developers, having nearly 14 times the percentage of employees in software development compared to Kuwait. There is a similar distribution when looking at business development employees and Finance. The Kuwait Investment Authority also hires a higher number of Trainees than Norges. This reflects the smaller average previous experience length of Kuwaiti employees mentioned above.
The employee distribution gives us an indication of where the focus lies for each of the investment firms covered here. Norges seems to be investing heavily in software and finance and Kuwait is looking to train up younger employees and retain them within their organization for a long time.
How to Expand Your Analysis of Investment Funds
How do you level up your business strategy and investment trajectory?
Simple.
From here on, it’s a smooth journey. Osterus can be used as your main instrument when assessing that next investment — whether you’re comparing stats of portfolio companies with the competition, or just exploring what the market has to offer.
You’ll effectively be able to unlock comprehensive reports on workforce structure and experience, hiring practices and more.
Want to benchmark yourself?
