The foundation had 3.1 billion kronor in investments at the end of 2012, according to its website. Of the total, 51 percent was invested in equities, up from 47 percent at the end of 2011, while 16 percent was held in fixed-income securities, down from 20 percent a year earlier. The foundation invested 33 percent in alternative assets, unchanged from a year earlier.

Of the Nobel Foundation’s total capital, as much as 94 percent is based on the original contribution made by Alfred Nobel.

The institution’s cost cutting measures include spending less on the awards banquet, which takes place on Dec. 10 every year to commemorate the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The roughly 1,300 guests include the Swedish royal family. The foundation targets a 20 percent reduction in costs, a goal it hopes to reach by the end of this year, Heikensten said.

‘Beef Up’

While the foundation has “absolutely no plans” to seek donor capital now, it will need to explore the option “in the coming years,” Heikensten said. Steps could include a broad campaign globally to attract donors or to target organizations or investors individually to “help beef up our capital,” he said. Any arrangement must safeguard integrity and independence of the Nobel award, he said.

Other options include making money on the Nobel brand, such as opening more Nobel museums outside Sweden and Norway, Heikensten said. The foundation is already building a new Nobel Center on the Blasieholmen island in Stockholm. The center, which is due to open in 2018, is being financed mainly through donations from the Ehrling-Persson Family Foundation and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Heikensten, a former governor of the Swedish central bank, also said the Nobel Foundation should aim to increase the prize amount in line with wage developments rather than inflation. The amount today only represents about 10 times a professor’s salary, compared with about 30 times when the prizes were founded, he said.

World Wars

Heikensten, who became executive director in 2011, said he doesn’t expect the prize amount to be raised during his tenure in the coming years.

Alfred Nobel signed his will in 1895, a year before his death, stipulating that most of his estate of more than 31 million kronor -- about 1.7 billion kronor in today’s money -- should be converted into a fund and invested in “safe securities.”