Activists urge Berkshire to engage with PetroChina on Darfur
May 23, 2007 (BEIJING) — US activists have called on Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway to actively engage with PetroChina, its parent China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), and the Chinese government to address the oil company’s role in Sudan.
The Boston-based activists have sent a letter to the board of directors at Berkshire Hathaway, which is PetroChina’s largest investor with a stake worth nearly three bln usd, asking the investment firm to use its “unique level of influence to stop the genocide in Darfur.”
The letter urges Berkshire Hathaway to request that PetroChina convene an extraordinary general meeting to address its business in Sudan, where the Darfur conflict is said to have killed 400,000 people since February 2003.
It follows last week’s announcement that Fidelity Investments, PetroChina’s second largest investor, sold 91 pct of its American Depository Receipts in the company – representing around 38 pct of its global holdings in PetroChina – in the first quarter.
The divestment was largely attributed to pressure from activists.
At the recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, Buffett opposed a shareholder resolution to divest from PetroChina.
While acknowledging divestment would be a last resort, the letter from the “Fidelity Out of Sudan” campaign called on Berkshire Hathaway to at least engage with PetroChina.
“There is another option that may be more powerful and which carries a minimal financial risk. This option is for Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway to actively and publicly engage PetroChina’s management and the government of China on behalf of the people of Darfur,” Fidelity Out of Sudan chairman Eric Cohen said in the letter.
“Of all the public investors in the world, only Berkshire Hathaway, holding 11 pct of shares outstanding, is in a position to request a shareholder meeting to address the Darfur issue,” Cohen’s letter said.
(AFX)