Norway’s richest person and newest billionaire is a 24-year-old from Western Norway with strong ties to salmon-farming, government tax records have revealed.
Gustav Magnar Witzoe, one of a growing number of Norwegian ‘salmon billionaires’ is worth 11.14 billion kroner (USD 1.37 billion), and displaces the likes of Trond Mohn — who made a fortune in marine pumps, and Norway’s second-richest, Kjell Inge Roekke (11.1 billion kroner), who transferred fishing-boat earnings into vast holdings across industries.
The tax filings suggest Norway’s new wealth generator after oil and offshore shipping looks to be farmed salmon which has, at times, competed favorably in dollar value with a barrel of oil.
The young Witzoe is heir to the Salmar fortune, with a 53.4-percent stake in the company, and his stock has by 1.4 billion kroner since 2016, a year that saw Salmar stock soar by 75 percent. In 2011, NRK reported, he was transferred outstanding shares in his dad’s company, Kverva, and became the country’s youngest ‘billionaire’.
“There are plusses and minuses (to being a young millionaire),” Gustav Magnar’s father, Gustav Witzoe, reportedly said to newspaper Addresseavisen “It’ll affect you in many ways, good and bad.”
