The new Minister of Trade and Industry Jan Christian Vestre has a fortune of at least NOK 100 million and repaid a super loan the day before he became Minister of State.
This loan was NOK 3 million and had an interest rate that ordinary mortgage customers can only dream of, something we will return to.
The Minister of Trade and Industry owns 70 per cent of the furniture manufacturer Vestre AS, his mother Elisabeth Preus Vestre the remaining 30 per cent. In addition, the Minister has been the general manager of the group.
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The official accounting figures for the Vestre Group for 2020 are not yet ready in Brønnøysund. But Nettavisen has been sent the income statement and balance sheet, overview of assets and liabilities, for the group for last year.
The figures show that the furniture group had sales of NOK 214.6 million, an increase from NOK 202.5 million in 2019.
An increase in operating expenses resulted in only a marginal profit improvement of NOK 36.6 million, while profit before tax fell by NOK 1 million to NOK 34.2 million.
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Added value?
At the end of last year, the Vestre Group had book values of NOK 222 million. 57 million of this is related to buildings and land, and here there may be added value. At the end of last year, the group also had NOK 55 million in the bank, which indicates good liquidity.
Equity – the owners’ estimated assets – as of 31 December 2020 was just over 142 million. Jan Christian Vestre’s part of this is approx. 100 million kroner. The real values may be higher, just as they are for Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
The two probably have a real fortune that is about the same size. The magazine Capital This summer, Støre’s real fortune was estimated at DKK 140 million. At the end of 2020, Støre had a book equity in its investment company Femstø AS of 74 million. In addition, there is private wealth from, among other things, houses and holiday homes.
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Buying a home
Despite his fortune, Vestre thus took out a loan in the company he is the main owner of for NOK 3 million.
According to the notes in the accounts for 2019, satisfactory security has been provided for the loan in accordance with the provisions of the Norwegian Companies Act. The loan was given at a very favorable interest rate, the so-called standard interest rate, which is currently at 1.3 percent.
– The loan you are aiming for was a shareholder loan of about NOK 3 million. The money went to finance the apartment at Sandaker where I am registered. The loan was repaid the day before I took office as Minister of Trade and Industry. I financed the repayment of the loan through a dividend that was approved at the general meeting. I do not owe Vestre AS money, Vestre writes in an e-mail to Nettavisen.
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In addition to Vestre’s repaid loan of NOK 3 million, a loan of NOK 700,000 has been granted to relatives of Vestre. This can be, for example, loans for family members. The online newspaper has asked the ministry for an answer as to who this applies to, but the ministry refers to Vestre AS.
Inhabil?
And then there is the impartiality. The online newspaper has asked Professor Emeritus Jan Fridtjof Bernt at the University of Bergen whether Vestre should declare itself incompetent in a number of cases, with its ownership. Bernt replies in an e-mail that this means that the Minister is incompetent in matters that directly concern the company.
According to Bernt, he must naturally resign as general manager. According to the expert on public law, this is practically necessary, but not a legal requirement. But to the question of whether Vestre will automatically be incompetent in all questions concerning the furniture industry, Bernt answers:
– No. The assessment theme of the Act (Section 6, second paragraph, of the Public Administration Act) is whether there are “special circumstances that are suitable for weakening confidence in his impartiality”.
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Decisive meaning
Matters concerning the furniture industry in general will not in themselves be regarded as “special circumstances” for the Minister. This only applies in the case of measures which either in practice primarily concern his company, or which are of absolutely decisive importance for the business of this company.
Ola Borten Moe has become Minister of Research and Higher Education in Støre’s government. He has ownership interests in the oil industry through the company Okea. Bernt writes that the answer is the same here.
As a general rule, Moe is not incompetent in general matters, only in decisions that particularly apply to companies in which he has a leading position or significant ownership interest.
Error
The wealth tax was a hot topic in the late summer. At the beginning of the election campaign, Vestre was critical of salmon billionaire Gustav Witzøe’s settlement with the wealth tax. The Minister of Trade and Industry was nevertheless open to making changes to the disputed tax.
– I respect that some people think it is wrong to pay tax on machines if the company you own is running a loss. There is probably no “quick fix” for this, but it can at least be considered whether the wealth tax should be made more accurate, not just through deferred tax, Vestre said to The stock exchange in the beginning of August.
– It is not relevant to make 25,000 Norwegians zero taxpayers, which according to the Ministry of Finance would be the consequence of removing the wealth tax completely, the new Minister of Trade and Industry emphasized just over two months ago.
He then added that “a clear precondition must of course be that everyone contributes according to ability”.
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Growing machine
Vestre has a law degree from the University of Oslo. In 2019, he was named Norway’s best growth creator in the international competition “EY Entrepreneur Of The Year” –
The new Minister of Trade and Industry also has a past in AUF and survived the massacres on Utøya. He has previously been chairman of the board for the reconstruction of Utøya.
Vestre has been political adviser to Minister of Trade and Industry Trond Giske in Jens Stoltenberg’s second government and also been political adviser in the Labor Party’s parliamentary group.
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