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This year’s WEF has a regular poor guest: Norwegian entrepreneur Stein Erik Hagen and food company Orkla are foregoing the annual meeting in Davos due to high costs. “Last year, when we experienced large price increases due to rising raw material prices, we sat down at Orkla and reviewed all our cost items. Plus the headquarters’ expenses. We cut out everything we didn’t need to prioritize; One of these was the Davos trip. At a time like this, this is not a priority for Orkla,” Hagen told Norwegian news platform “VG”.
The Orkla president was generally happy to come to Switzerland regularly for the WEF. He was in Davos for 20 years.
Although sales of 57.96 billion Norwegian kroner (about 480 million francs), according to the 2022 annual report, were about seven billion kroner higher than in the previous year and share prices appeared to be spared from strong fluctuations, Hagen put the red pen on the WEF. About “several million kroner”: “If food prices rise so quickly, we must do everything we can to keep costs as low as possible. The least we can do is when customers realize that buying food has become significantly more expensive.”
350,000 francs for membership alone
Last year, Hagen was among those who publicly criticized the WEF for rising participation costs. “It got too expensive,” he said at the time. He pays 9,000 kroner (about 750 francs) per person per day for the hotel room alone, plus travel expenses and membership. The cost of Orkla’s apparently canceled WEF membership was estimated by Norwegian media to be the equivalent of approximately 350,000 Swiss francs.
On the sidelines of WEF 2023, “Handelszeitung” also spoke to Hagen about the wave of Norwegian billionaires moving to Switzerland. Hagen transferred his assets to his children living in Geneva in 2009 for tax reasons. Christer Kjos, husband of Hagen’s daughter Caroline, runs the family investment company Canica Norge in Switzerland.
Consolation prize for WEF: Canica will probably stay loyal to WEF. According to “VG”, Caroline Hagen Kjos and Christer Kjos and CEO Jan Ole Stangeland are traveling to Davos.
This article was first published on the paid service of handelszeitung.ch. Blick+ users have exclusive access as part of their subscription. You can find more exciting articles at www.handelszeitung.ch.
This article was first published on the paid service of handelszeitung.ch. Blick+ users have exclusive access as part of their subscription. You can find more exciting articles at www.handelszeitung.ch.
In addition, it seems that many Norwegians are not deterred by the high participation fees. Many senior politicians, CEOs and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg are there. About 40 participants are expected for the traditional “Norwegian dinner” to be held at the Hotel Seehof on Monday evening.
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
