When the quiet one in the room suddenly shouts, people tend to listen. On that basis, the reserved and thoughtful Norwegians who run the country’s $850bn oil fund should get a decent hearing next time they visit Wolfsburg, having declared they will sue Volkswagen over the emissions¹ scandal.

当房间里默不出声的那个人突然大声呼喊时，人们通常会倾听。因此，考虑到掌管着挪威8500亿美元石油基金的那些保守而心细的挪威人已经宣布，将就排放丑闻起诉大众汽车(Volkswagen)，他们下一次访问沃尔夫斯堡时说的话应该会受到充分重视。

Class-action suits by investors² are an oddly circular way to extract money from the pot they themselves own and should not generally be encouraged. The Norwegian action needs to be seen, though, in the light of VW’s peculiarly dysfunctional corporate³ governance and the wider strategy of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

股东对自己持股的公司发起集体诉讼，是以一种诡异的迂回方式从他们自己的钱罐子里拿钱，这种做法一般不应被鼓励。不过，看待挪威石油基金这一举动时，我们需要考虑到大众汽车极度失灵的公司治理以及这家全球最大主权财富基金的整体战略。

VW presents a special case for shareholders⁴ to try more aggressive tactics because it has a weak supervisory board — the body that is supposed to hold management to account — and a habit of ignoring minority investors. It is hard to shift the Porsche and Piëch families and the state of Lower Saxony, which control the company with an arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. The oil fund has tried conventional means. It meets regularly with VW and broke its usual silence in a public letter to the company in 2009, criticising deals that secured the main shareholders’ control. Its backing for a rare lawsuit⁵ shows its continued frustration⁶.

大众汽车为股东尝试更激进策略提供了一个特殊案例，因为该公司的监事会（理论上应负责对管理层问责）比较弱势，并且该公司一贯忽视中小投资者。控股大众汽车的波尔舍(Porsche)和皮希(Piëch)家族、德国下萨克森州(Lower Saxony)以及卡塔尔主权财富基金旗下机构，是很难改变的。挪威石油基金此前尝试过常规手段。该基金与大众汽车举行定期会议，2009年还曾打破一贯的沉默，发表了一封给大众汽车的公开信，对一些确保了主要股东控制权的交易提出批评。此次该基金支持一起罕见的集体诉讼，体现了它持续的不满。

Sovereign funds and some large private institutional investors could still learn from the other tactics the Norwegians are using to engage actively⁷ with the companies where they have a stake.

挪威石油基金还在使用其他一些策略加大对自己持股的公司的参与，这些策略也是各主权基金以及部分大型私人机构投资者可以借鉴的。

The scale of the fund, which owns an average of 1.3 per cent of every listed company, has spurred it to take a more active ownership role. Its template is similar to that of Calpers, the influential⁸ Californian teachers’ pension fund that uses its $292bn of investments to campaign on governance and green issues.

挪威石油基金在每家上市公司平均持股份额达到1.3%，如此庞大的规模促使该基金扮演更积极的股东角色。该基金的模板与美国加州公务人员退休基金(Calpers)类似。后者是一家颇具影响力的养老基金，它利用其2920亿美元投资，开展围绕治理和环保问题的运动。

Last year, the oil fund started revealing its voting intentions, issuing “position papers” that set out the principles on which it is acting⁹ and, following a Nordic model, joining nomination¹⁰ committees of companies where it has stakes. This year, apart from its focus on VW, it has also launched a campaign against excessive executive pay.

去年，挪威石油基金开始公布其投票意向，发布“立场书”陈述它所依据的行动原则，并遵循北欧模式，加入自己持股的公司的提名委员会。今年，除了关注大众汽车以外，该基金还发起了反对高管过高薪酬的运动。

Some shareholders may freeride on the Norwegians’ investment in activism but the fund operates with a very lean engagement team. Helping¹¹ lazier peers is a risk worth running in the interests of the fund as a whole. Index funds, which also have to hold a wide portfolio¹², albeit¹³ on a smaller scale, should also recognise that activism is the main lever they have to improve the performance of the companies whose shares they are obliged to own.

挪威石油基金积极行动之后，一些股东可能会搭便车；但该基金负责持股公司参与事务的团队人数很少。为了该基金的整体利益，帮助懒惰的同行是值得冒的风险。指数型基金同样必须持有广泛的产品组合——虽然持有规模较小；这些基金也应认识到，要想改善他们被动持股的那些公司的表现，积极行动是他们所拥有的主要手段。

Active engagement is not just about shouting, however. In February, the oil fund revealed the corporate proposals it had opposed at annual meetings. It also pointed¹⁴ out it had not declared its voting intentions in advance of annual meetings at nine companies because they changed their stance in response to behind-the-scenes encounters. Sometimes, “softly softly” is still the best approach.

不过，积极参与不只是要大声呼喊。2月份，挪威石油基金公布了其在各个年度会议上反对过的公司建议。该基金还指出，它在9家公司的年度会议前未公布自己的投票意向，因为他们根据私下接触的情况改变了立场。有时候，“灵活柔软”仍是最好的办法。

Even so, VW is a good counter-example of what happens if heavyweight funds stay quiet for too long. If shareholders had protested about its byzantine governance earlier, they might have succeeded in keeping the carmaker on the road.

即便如此，大众汽车仍是个很好的反面教材，揭示了如果重仓持股的基金保持沉默太久会发生什么。如果股东们早一点对大众汽车的繁复治理提出反对，他们或许可以成功地让这家汽车制造商保持在正轨上运行。

Sovereign wealth funds are a disparate bunch. Some are rigidly¹⁵ controlled by the state, some answer to citizens, others to ruling families. Seeking consensus¹⁶ between them is even harder than herding¹⁷ cats, according to one person who works with the funds, because they “aren’t even the same species”. All could, however, learn from Norway’s oil fund that with power comes responsibility.

不同主权财富基金差异巨大。有些受到国家的严格控制，有些对公民负责，还有一些对统治家族负责。一位在主权财富基金工作的人士表示，在不同主权财富基金中寻求共识比“牧猫”还难，因为它们“甚至不都同属于一个物种”。不过，所有的主权基金都可以从挪威石油基金身上学到一点：权力越大，责任越重。