US fund joins call to quit Sudan investments
Mar 22, 2006 (NEW YORK) — A U.S. mutual fund manager on Wednesday joined an escalating campaign to pressure companies to exit Sudan to protest the ethnic violence labeled genocide by the United States.
Citizens Advisers, the investment manager to Citizens Funds, said it had written to chief executives at about 20 companies within its portfolio calling on them to review and divest any business activities in the African country.
Citizens said it was the first mutual fund management firm to urge divestment from its portfolio companies although the move follows similar calls by other U.S. organizations, some of whom have started to sell out of companies that refuse.
“We believe that encouraging companies to divest of their businesses in Sudan has the potential to have the same tremendous positive impact as the South Africa divestiture campaign of the 1990s,” said Joanne Dowdell, vice president of corporate responsibility at Boston-based Citizens.
“This campaign has really started to get momentum, starting from the university level, expanding to state pension funds and now moving to the investment community.”
The Sudan Divestment Campaign, headquartered at Williams College in the state of Massachusetts, says research shows about 81 U.S. public pension funds have about $91 billion invested in companies with business activities in Sudan.
For while American companies are barred from doing business with Sudan following sanctions introduced in 1997 by the Clinton Administration, many international companies still operate there.
According to KLD Research and Analytics, an independent U.S.-based investment research company, there are about 120 publicly traded companies doing business with Sudan and some U.S. state and city pension funds have holdings in these.
Earlier this month the University of California joined a number of other U.S. schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Brown and Amherst in pushing for companies to suspend business in Sudan until the government protects its people.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in widespread violence in the western Sudanese region, begun three years ago by mostly non-Arab rebels who accused Khartoum of neglect. Rape, killings and looting have driven two million from their homes.
Harvard last April sold its $4.4 million stake in PetroChina Co. Ltd.(0857.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) which is engaged in oil exploration in Sudan.
The University of California’s Board of Regents voted to divest from index funds that invest in nine international companies it said “aid the genocide in Sudan”.
The list included India’s Bharat Heavy Electricals, Oil and Natural Gas Co Ltd.(ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Videocon Industries (VDCI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), China’s China Petroleum and Chemical Corp.(0386.HK: Quote, Profile, Research), Malaysia’s Nam Fatt Corporation Bhd (NFBS.KL: Quote, Profile, Research) and PECD Bhd (PECD.KL: Quote, Profile, Research), and Russian oil company OAO Tatneft (TATN3.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) (TNT.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
The campaign Website said it is also pushing for U.S. states to follow New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon with legislation to approve bills that prohibit pension fund investment in companies with ties to Sudan.
(Reuters)