Rokke is the chairman of Aker, an industrial group with stakes in oil companies, a ship charterer and real estate. The former fisherman took over oil-rig builder Aker in 1996 before expanding into seafood and marine biotechnology. The Oslo-based company had total revenue of 12.9 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.1 billion) in 2024.
The majority of Rokke's fortune is derived from his 68% stake in Aker. He holds the shares through holding company TRG Holding AS, according to Aker's 2024 annual report. Stakes held by Aker in other public companies are excluded from the analysis to avoid double counting.
His cash holdings are based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, market performance and taxes.
Rokke said in 2017 that he would give away most of his fortune to clean up the world's oceans. This analysis assumes that he is yet to do so.
Atle Kigen, a spokesperson at Aker, declined to comment on the net wealth calculation.
Kjell Inge Rokke was born in Norway on Oct. 25, 1958. Deemed dyslexic, he dropped out of school in ninth grade and started working on a fishing trawler when he was 17. A few years later he later moved to Alaska, bought a 69-foot trawler in 1982 and gradually built a fisheries business, according to his biography on Aker's website. He would spend 21 years in the US before moving back to Norway in the early 2000s.
In 1996, his company purchased enough shares of Aker, one of Norway's largest conglomerates focused on shipbuilding and offshore drilling services, to become its largest shareholder. He later merged his firm, RGI, with Aker. He became majority shareholder in engineering company Kvaerner in 2002, which later became Aker Solutions. In 2022, at which point Aker ranked as one of Norway's largest private industrial employers, Rokke announced he would move to Switzerland.
Rokke said in May 2017 that he would give away most of his fortune to help clean up the world's oceans.