Svein Støle is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 businessperson

Businessperson

A businessperson is someone involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, or physical capital. An entrepreneur is an example of a business person...

 and broker

Broker

A broker is a party that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller, and gets a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal...

. After growing up in Mandal, he was educated in law and business administration. He worked for a period as a journalist for Kapital before in 1992 buying a large portion of Pareto Group

Pareto Group

Pareto Group is a Norwegian holding company that owns several financial brokers, including 75 % of Pareto Securities and the shipbroker Bassøe. In 2008 Pareto will start its own bank, Pareto Bank. In 2006 it had 5.1 % of the trade on the Oslo Stock Exchange...

, where he holds a 80.1% ownership. His fortune in 2009 was estimated at NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

 5.5 billion (approximately 900 million USD).

He is educated from the Norwegian School of Economics where he graduated in 1983.