Norway is rich, but so is Kjell Inge Rokke, the maritime billionaire and controlling shareholder of Aker. Many Norwegians would like to know why their Government has agreed to pay him nearly a billion dollars for a minority stake in Aker Kvaerner, the oil contracting and construction company.

Mr Rokke injects a bit of colour into Norway’s prim business world – he spent a month in a jail last year for paying a bribe to secure a yachting pilot’s licence (which he denies).

His is a Nordic rags-to-riches story; he is a fisherman-turned-shipping magnate who in 2001 took over Kvaerner, which had laid itself low after its acquisition of Trafalgar House in 1996. The renamed Aker Kvaerner rapidly unloaded its UK businesses and shed a mass of British pension liabilities to a buyout vehicle, a deal that caused a storm of protest.

Aker Kvaerner is a contracting firm that services the offshore oil industry, with expertise in the Arctic. Not surprisingly, Norway’s northern neighbours have been casting adoring glances, notably Gazprom, which lacks offshore engineering expertise. Aker Kvaerner can build things that withstand ice.

Was Mr Rokke canoodling with the Russians? The tycoon has been in selling mode. In January, he dumped on the market his 40 per cent interest in Aker Yards, Europe’s biggest shipbuilder, raising $150 million (£75 million). It was enough to sound sirens in Oslo and last Friday the Norwegian Government stepped in with a deal that puts a Nordic belt and braces over Aker Kvaerner and ropes in the Swedish Establishment as a further bulwark against invasion from the East.

Mr Rokke is transferring Aker’s 40 per cent stake in the offshore rig-builder to a new company, Aker Holdings, of which he will own 60 per cent. The Norwegian Government will take 30 per cent, while Investor, the investment fund owned by Sweden’s Wallenberg family, will hold 7.5 per cent. Saab, an Investor-controlled company, will retain 2.5 per cent.

It’s a Scandinavian stitch-up: Mr Rokke’s company gets Kr6.4 billion (£540 million) and a ten-year standstill agreement, which ensures that no one sells to a third party while Aker Kvaerner’s headquarters remain in Oslo.

Norwegians are nervous; oil and gas made them rich, but the Norwegian Sea has been well trawled and exploration is moving north to the Barents Sea. That is shared with Russia and it makes sense for the two countries to co-operate. However, the Kremlin is less than welcoming, having recently declared Shtokman, a giant Barents Sea gasfield, off limits to foreign investment. President Putin insisted that Gazprom would go it alone. Oslo’s response seems to be: “You keep your gasfield and we will keep our engineering.”

How US has edge in cash

Business is all about cash, where it comes from and where it goes. If we did not know that already, private equity firms remind us daily, with their aggressive manipulation of cashflow. Nothing excites a partner at KKR quite like a slumbering business with a warehouse full of boxes and a back office full of clerks toying with invoices.

Putting the squeeze on working capital – emptying the warehouse, chasing debtors, slowing payments to creditors – is grist to their mill. However, culture also plays a big role in business and so does globalisation. These tend to get in the way of simple cash management principles.

A survey conducted by REL, a cash management consultancy, and CFO magazine reveals striking differences between the working capital performance of companies in the United States and Europe. Excluding the car industry, the average US company had 38.8 days working capital (derived from the sum of its receivables, inventory and payables), while a similar sample of European firms showed an average of 45.2 days.

American businesses seem to be able to operate with less of their cash tied up in working capital. According to REL, US firms had an average of 39.5 days sales outstanding while Europeans had a figure of 54.7.

Within Europe there is a big cultural divide between the northern climes, where 30-day payment terms are adhered to, and the Club Med, where firms often support 100 days of unpaid customer bills.

That is all right if your suppliers are local and offer the same generous payment terms, but globalisation is putting huge strains on working capital. It means bearing the cost of inventory on the high seas. It also means juggling differing payment conventions and funding the yawning gap between the demands of a German supplier and the slothfulness of a customer in Greece.

This is where US firms have the edge. With a vast hinterland of suppliers and customers working within the same conventions, Americans can operate most of their business with less money tied up in working capital. If the European Commission wanted to deliver a quick efficiency gain, it could regulate payment terms. Then again, perhaps not.

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