VW’s Largest Independent Shareholder Cuts Stake by 50%

The Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund has sold half its €1 billion ($1.1 billion) stake in Volkswagen Group, apparently in frustration over the company’s lack of transparency.

With more than $1 trillion in assets, the Norwegian fund is the largest of its kind in the world. It also has been VW’s biggest independent voting shareholder for the past six years, the Financial Times says.

The fund has complained for years about VW’s insular 20-member supervisory board, only one of which is independent both the company and its handful of shareholders who control nearly 90% of voting shares.

The fund publicly criticized VW’s plan a decade ago to buy Porsche Automobil Holding after the failed attempt by the latter company’s parent to acquire VW. The fund said the scheme appeared tailored to benefit Porsche’s controlling Porsche and Piech families at the expense of VW and its non-controlling owners.

More recently, the normally reticent sovereign fund joined other investors in suing VW over its diesel emission cheating scandal.

FT notes that for three years running VW has earned the worst possible corporate governance rating by Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., a Rockville, Md.-based advisory firm. Last year ISS advised shareholders not to approve any VW management and supervisory board members. Doing otherwise, the firm cautioned, would be a “tacit vote of confidence” in VW’s management and opaque policies.