[Foreword]
"Who is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize ?"
This is a topic that many people pay attention to every year. In addition to knowing who the Nobel Prize is, many people will also understand the contributions of the winners in a certain field and will also care about how much prizes the winners will receive.
As of 2021, Nobel individual award winners will receive a bonus of 10 million Swedish kroner , which is approximately RMB 7.368 million. From 1901 to 2021, in the past 120 years, more than 1,000 Nobel Prize winners have won the prizes awarded by the Nobel Foundation.
According to some factors, the annual bonus will be adjusted accordingly. But generally speaking, the bonus will only increase.
This makes people wonder:
Nobel How much property did the old man leave during his lifetime, so that he still has inexhaustible resources for 120 years? Are there any superb financial management methods behind
?
Today, let’s talk about the development history of Nobel Foundation .
- [Legend for Mankind]
In fact, the Nobel Fund is not as smooth as we imagined. It has experienced several crises in the middle and almost went bankrupt. This 120-year financial management history is full of drama and reform.
So, let’s start with the establishment of the Nobel Fund.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel is a world-renowned inventor. People may forget other things he invented in his life, but they will never forget the diatomaceous earth explosive he invented, which is what we commonly call TNT explosive.
Nobel has 355 patents and inventions in his life. These patents have given him more than 100 companies and factories in 20 countries and regions around the world, and also allowed him to win financial freedom.
Before Nobel died in 1896, his property owned 31.5872 million SEK. At first glance, it doesn't seem too much, but if converted into today's currency value, it is equivalent to about 1.836 billion Swedish kroner, which was already a huge wealth back then.
Before the establishment of the Nobel Prize, Nobel's life in his later years was actually not satisfactory. He invented explosives for better development of industrial manufacturing, but unexpectedly, explosives also brought about iterative upgrades of war.
Many people call Nobel the "father of explosives", but this is not a complete compliment, and they are indirectly accusing him of aggravating people's fear of war, and at the same time bringing more damage and disasters to the world.
Even media reported that Nobel was the largest "arms dealer" and "butcher" of this century.
Faced with many accusations, Nobel left his permanent residence in Paris and moved to an Italian town to continue his invention research.
1895 On November 27, Nobel made a world-famous will.
The content of the will is roughly that Nobel himself is willing to build almost all of his property into a fund, which can achieve growth through financial management and then distribute interest to those who have made outstanding contributions in various disciplines every year.
In the eyes of the outside world, this will is equivalent to a "synthesia" for the world.
In 1898, two years after Nobel's death, the Swedish government admitted that the Nobel will came into effect, and the Nobel Fund was born.
Since 1901, the fund has established five prizes for physics, chemistry, physiology, or medicine, literature and peace every year. By 1969, Swedish Bank added an economics award. Since then, these six fields have received the highest-level awards, and the Nobel Foundation is also regarded by the academic community as "the greatest legacy of mankind."
Regarding the amount of bonuses issued, Nobel made a clear statement in his will, that is, it is not less than the twenty-year salary of professors in colleges and universities. The purpose is to "ensure that the winners can be exempted from financial troubles in the next twenty years and can concentrate on doing research."
Therefore, the total bonus also ranged from 150,000 Swedish kroner in 1901 to 80 million Swedish kroner in 21 years.And this number will also increase with the impact of economic growth and inflation .
Although the Nobel Fund was handed over to professionals for entrusted management, managing such a large amount of money is not an easy task. In fact, because of Nobel himself, the early Nobel funds were running difficult...
- [Fund bound by the will]
Nobel stated in his will that the principal must invest in "safe securities" with the fund.
The so-called secure securities are conservative investment methods, including depositing in the bank to earn interest and purchasing high-reputation bonds.
As the saying goes, success is a will, failure is a will. Nobel originally intended to be good, hoping that this fund can last for a long time, but investing in safe securities also means low yields.
Initially, the foundation converted more than 30 million Swedish kronor into US dollars and deposited it to , the highest interest rate of that year, and the US bank , with a 4% return every year, but this return is only the risk-free interest rate of the world economy. When the economy of Europe and the United States was developing rapidly in the early 20th century, interest could not even beat inflation.
, and inflation is linked to the professor's salary. After a while, the Nobel Prize is paid more and more, while the interest is getting less and less, which has led to the reduction of Nobel's fund balance year by year.
If this continues, you will always be in vain.
It was raining all the time. Nobel Fund has been developing for less than ten years. In addition to the negative returns brought by steady investment, another mountain is in front of it, that is - taxation.
We all know that the world in the 20th century was not particularly peaceful. World War I and World War II made the finances of European governments tight. In order to ensure the various needs of the country, European and American countries have successively issued high corporate taxes, especially investment income taxes.
Among them, Sweden raised it to 10%, which made the already unlucky Nobel Fund worse.
By the mid-twentieth century, the balance of the Nobel Fund became 17 million Swedish kroner, and the overall scale shrank by 40%! But the bonus has to be paid. In recent years, the prize money of Nobel Prize winners is only equivalent to 2-3 years of salary for university professors, which is a bit big from the "20-year salary level" that Nobel hoped at that time.
Two World Wars and the economic recession have greatly reduced the Nobel Fund, but on the other hand, the value and influence of the Nobel Prize have also been increasingly recognized by the world. This makes Nobel Fund managers "unable to get out of here".
In order to allow the Nobel Fund to develop smoothly, the Swedish government announced in 1946 that it would exempt all taxes from the Nobel Fund.
On the other hand, in 1953, the Nobel Fund Council decided to amend the will, lifting the restrictions that the Nobel Fund must "invest safely". From then on, Nobel Fund can not only purchase treasury bonds, bank interest, etc. that can also purchase company stocks and real estate.
In the same year, the US government also exempted all taxes from the Nobel Fund, which means that the foundation can invest more freely in the United States. Compared with the Swedish government’s tax reductions and exemptions, the United States’ tax reductions and exemptions are more important.
Finally, the full opening of investment restrictions has indeed brought the Nobel Fund back to life!
19
1955, Nobel Fund turned losses into profits, and the prizes of the Nobel Prize winners are also increasing year by year. By the 1980s, the Nobel Fund returned to its initial level in 1898.
After nearly 100 years of turmoil, the Nobel Prize has been back on track again.
From 2001, when the Nobel Prize was awarded the centenary, the prize size of the Nobel Prize winners increased to 1.5 times that of a hundred years ago, and everything was developing in a good direction.
- [Investment method of Nobel Fund]
Although the development of Nobel Fund is generally improving, in addition to issuing bonuses to Nobel Prize winners, additional expenses are also becoming more and more.
From the financial reports from 1920 to 1980, the bonuses issued in the Nobel Fund only account for about 60% of the total expenditure, and the remaining 40% are basically management expenses.
It seems that the Nobel Foundation is a relatively large organization. In fact, there are only 25 custodians responsible for investment. The high salary of these custodians is also one of the important expenses of the Nobel Fund.
But it is also worth hiring a high-paying custodian. In the foundation's investment career, the custodian successfully avoided the U.S. stock market crash in 1987 and the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008.
These two hedgings allowed the Nobel Fund to maintain its value in the financial crisis, and also became a classic case in the history of world investment.
This is thanks to the complex investment portfolio developed by the fund custodian. After the full open fund investment restrictions, the custodian did not invest all assets into high-risk and high-yield investment products, but instead coexisted with wages of multiple risk levels.
According to the investment content released by the Nobel Foundation in 2021, 50% of the Nobel Fund invests in stocks and securities, 30% invests in hedge fund and diverse projects such as real estate and collectibles, and the other 20% are used in traditional security investments, such as cash deposit interest, as well as value-preserving products such as treasury bonds, precious metals , etc.
As described in the movie " Xihong City Richest Man ", when there is enough money, you can make money no matter how much you spend it.
The above investment ratio is not completely fixed. When the economy develops well, the investment scale of stocks and securities will be more; when the economy begins to decline, the Nobel Foundation will frantically buy cheap real estate in the European and American real estate markets. Gradually, every investment in the Nobel Foundation can basically make profits that exceed expectations.
In addition to this, the Nobel Foundation also accepts donations from other organizations.
For example, in 1961, the Barzan International Foundation awarded the first prize of 1 million Swiss francs to the Nobel Foundation to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Nobel Prize. In 1985, the Japan Science and Technology Foundation and the Inamori Foundation awarded the first prize totaling 95 million yen to the Nobel Foundation respectively.
From then on, many countries or institutions will donate the first bonus to the Nobel Foundation when establishing scientific research funds, which is an unwritten rule.
The most donated is Swedish Central Bank .
In 1968, the Swedish Central Bank donated a huge sum of money to the Nobel Foundation and used this money to add the Nobel Prize in Economics to encourage economists who have made outstanding contributions in economics. At the same time, the Swedish Central Bank bears a portion of the bonus every year to support the gradually high management costs and encourage the Nobel Foundation to invest more boldly.
It sounds like the Nobel Fund is becoming more and more "wealthy". Not only are there more and more bonuses, but the total inheritance is also becoming more and more. But in fact, there were times when the Nobel Prize was awarded to reduce expenses.
As an example. After the Nobel Prize winners were announced before
, the Swedish royal family will invite them to attend a special dinner for them. At the beginning, there is no limit on the number of people required for the dinner. Winners can bring relatives and friends to the dinner together, and the size of the dinner is also at the royal level. But until 1989, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Camillo Jose Serra brought the village chief, neighbors, and various relatives and friends, and a total of 68 people attended the dinner together. This has greatly increased the expenses of the Nobel Prize dinner, almost emptying the Swedish royal kitchen.
From then on, the Nobel Prize Dinner has stipulated a limit on the number of people, requiring each winner to bring up to 14 people to the dinner. Although a meal won’t make the Nobel Fund poor, the “group eating event” has also become a humorous episode that the Nobel Fund advocates saving.
- [End]
Now the Nobel Prize has returned to Nobel's last wish back then, and the prize size is the professor's 20-year salary. So at the end, will anyone wonder how the Nobel winners will use this money?
The salary of a university professor for 20 years is a huge sum of money no matter which country it is in.The Nobel Prize winners also have a variety of ways to spend money, and the most varied ones are in the field of literary awards.
For example, Nobel Prize winner of Literature Sholokhov used all the prize money as tourism funds; Chinese writer Mo Yan bought a house on the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing with the prize money, and Finnish writer Frans Emil immediately paid the publishing fee owed to the publishing company's 2.5 million Finnish Marks.
In the field of natural sciences, the way Nobel Prize winners spend money is relatively monotonous. After winning the award, most scientists will donate the prize to laboratories, schools, research institutions or public welfare and charity. Two of them, Mrs. Curie, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, won the entire prize in chemistry experiments, and the development of world chemistry continues to contribute.
From 1901 to 2021, the Nobel Prize has gone through a full 120 years.
has to admit that Nobel Prize winners are all people who are truly contributing to the world.
And the Nobel Prize has been able to maintain objective and fairness in the past 120 years, and can also learn from the past and walk on thin ice in financial management, which has also become a good story in the history of world investment.
At the end of the article, I sincerely hope that the Nobel Prize can maintain its original intention and continue to encourage scientists, writers and economists who have made outstanding contributions to the world. Because of them, the changes in the world will change with each passing day and our lives will be rich and colorful. I also hope that the Nobel Fund can continue to maintain scientific management and make the fund the fundamental driving force for human progress!
