Chronicle This is a chronicle, written by an external contributor. The chronicle expresses the writer’s attitudes.
The quota report that was passed in the Storting recently has been described by several as a “quota”. It is not the only robbery that people in the north have experienced in recent years. Within tourism, wind power, district heating, etc., there are more and more businesses that are managed by major international financial acrobats, often with ownership anchored in so-called “tax havens”.
Hurtigruten is one of several such companies.
16 June 2020 started Hurtigruten on its trip from Bergen to Kirkenes and back. For about. half a year this “world’s most beautiful coastal trip” had been canceled due to the corona; only on a few short stretches in the far north had the boats been in partial operation. This was the first regular trip after the extensive closures that came as a result of the pandemic.
The trip north was quite an experience for the passengers: nice weather, pleasant service, good food and a good atmosphere. Up close, they got to see much of what was in the book “The hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy” is almost described as the ultimate creation: the Norwegian coast. The biggest impression was probably made by the reception the boat received along the route, it was almost like a continuous May 17 celebration all the way. People in large numbers gathered at the landing sites, shouted hurray and waved Norwegian flags both on the quays, on the breakwaters and on the verandas of the houses along the lea. In some places, bands also played sweeping music. The coastal people welcomed back an old friend. Alongside the TV program “Hurtigruta minute by minute”, this trip made it clear how important Hurtigruten has been for the communities along the coast, and how strongly it is rooted in the coastal people’s soul.
Then it is downright tragic to experience how this iconic business is managed by the current owners and management of the company. The Norwegian part is managed from Norway, while the CEO and the group of which Hurtigruten is a part are managed from an administration based in a financial district in London. The group has a complicated ownership structure where much of the ownership has a business address in the tax haven of Luxembourg. The CEO has a registered address in a fashionable celebrity district and has an annual remuneration corresponding to approx. 30 times the average salary in Norway, in addition to the fact that he has shares worth tens of millions in the company.
The group has had considerable red accounting figures in recent years, but Hurtigruten itself delivers good financial results; this is due, among other things, to a good agreement with the Norwegian state where the company receives over NOK 700 million annually through service purchases to traffic the Norwegian coast.
Hurtigruten is operated miles away – both literally and figuratively – from the value base and social mission that the founder Richard With, the charismatic director Wille Pettersen, Johs. Giæver, Bjørn Kaldhol (and many, many more) laid the foundations for how the company should be run. Hurtigruten has had a reputational say over the approach to the quays along the coast in the eternal financial round dance for mega profit.
How can that be that in the course of a few years Hurtigruten has changed so fundamentally from being a social institution to becoming an almost pure instrument for international financial acrobats, laced with some wealthy Norwegian super-celebrity investors? (One of these, who is also the editor of a financial magazine, also went so far as to publicly accuse a well-known Norwegian farmer of being far too demanding of the Norwegian state when it comes to agricultural policy. Will he, the celebrity investor, be just as critical to the state contributing to Hurtigruten’s management raising pure fantasy salaries?)
A reason for that it has become this way is perhaps because for all ports of call along the coast Hurtigruten’s presence is very important. It is not as important for local passenger or goods transport as before; there is probably a lot going on with other means of transport. Now it is mostly a tourist machine that creates small ripple effects on land, perhaps first and foremost for local food suppliers who get a market for high-quality and short-traveled food products. But perhaps the most important thing is that Hurtigruten has to pay port tax, which is a welcome, important and fixed contribution in strained municipal economies where the boats call. Cutting this income to the municipalities will be both difficult and unfortunate.
Therefore; as it is now has developed, it is perhaps better – both literally and figuratively – to let Hurtigruten sail its own seas and rather use NOK 700 million of society’s funds to strengthen operators along the coast in a more targeted way. In that way, perhaps the value creation can benefit both local food producers and ports of call to a greater extent; without the values being sent straight to tax havens or CEOs’ wallets.
So back to the headline: As we wrote in the introduction, we who live in the north have just experienced a robbery when it comes to the public’s right to the fishing resources in northern waters. The quota, it can be called, implemented by politicians under pressure from capital-rich players. Unfortunately, it is not the only robbery of natural resources that could have been used to the benefit of everyone living in the north. The Hurtigruten case can also be characterized as a robbery, a kind of “service robbery”. Here, however, the capital-rich players have managed well on their own, supported by large government transfers. From a political point of view, few questions are asked about this, even though it is in many ways part of the “robbery wave” that is washing over the coast.
If it is sufficient political will for it, is it possible to stop this, also when the waves come from Hurtigruten?
