Press Release - Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation

 

The 2004 Financial Management of the Nobel Foundation

At their meeting on Friday, April 29, the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation approved the 2004 financial statements of the Foundation:

• On December 31, 2004, the market value of the Foundation's invested capital amounted to SEK 2,966 m (2,871). Total return on assets – growth in Foundation assets after adding back the year's disbursements – amounted to 7.0 percent (7.2).
  
  
• Net assets, that is, the market value of equity calculated as invested capital at market value adjusted for other balance sheet items, rose by 3.2 percent (3.3).
  
  
• The value of the Foundation's stock portfolio, which amounted to SEK 1,712 m at year-end, changed by 8.2 percent during 2004. The annual average for the last five years' return on assets is -5.1 percent, compared to -6.2 percent for a benchmark index. During the same period, the MSCI World Index showed an average annual change of -7.2 percent.
  
  
• The return on the Foundation's bond portfolio during 2004 was 6.9 percent, compared to 7.4 percent for the benchmark index OMRX Bond. The market value of this portfolio totalled SEK 948 m at year-end.
  
  
• Each of the 2005 Nobel Prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace) will amount to SEK 10.0 m (10.0). The total amount of all five Nobel Prizes is SEK 50.0 m. In addition, the Bank of Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will amount to SEK 10.0 m.

Changes in the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation

Professor Bengt Samuelsson, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation since May 1, 1993, is resigning at his own request, since his mandate has expired and he has reached the age of 70 years.

Elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation was Mr. Marcus Storch, MD h.c., former President and CEO of AGA AB, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and former Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Professor Gunnar Öquist, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a former regular member of the Board of Directors, was elected Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors.

The Trustees of the Nobel Foundation elected Professor Hans Jörnvall, former alternate of the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation, as a new regular member. Hans Jörnvall is Secretary of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet and of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine.

As a new alternate of the Board of Directors, the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation elected Professor Bo Sundqvist. Bo Sundqvist is Professor of Ion Physics, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and President of Uppsala University.

 

Stockholm, April 29, 2005

THE NOBEL FOUNDATION / Michael Sohlman, Executive Director