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RI global news round-up
The week’s RI news you might have missed
Scandinavian fund managers and insurance companies are selling so-called ethical investments while investing in nuclear weapons and cluster bomb manufacturers, according to research by Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri. The paper said pension insurance companies including Alecta, Skandia Liv, Lansforsakringar and SEB Trygg Liv owned shares totalling SEK700m in arms manufacturers such as Honeywell, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.
The newspaper said Skandia Liv has an internal ethical policy against nuclear and cluster bomb investments.
Lansforsakringar told Dagens Industri it followed international conventions ratified by Sweden and its investment in Raytheon was due to a passive US equity portfolio.
Alecta told Dagens Industri it was reviewing its policies. By contrast, the newspaper said pension funds and fund managers including AP3, Banco, KPA Pensions and the Norwegian Petroleumfund were examples of investors adhering to clear ethical guidelines.
The Save Darfur Coalition is targeting asset managers including Franklin Templeton Investments, JPMorgan Chase, Capital Group, Fidelity Investments, and Vanguard with a campaign to urge them to sell shares in PetroChina and its former parent, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), because of their operations in Sudan, where government sponsored militia have been accused of genocide.
The pay of US chief executives (CEO), private equity
and hedge fund managers should be taxed higher to bring their compensation levels in line with European norms, according to a study by the US Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. It said the 20 highest paid US CEOs made an average $36.4m each in 2006, nearly three times the $12.4m for their European counterparts, but much less than the average $657.5m each of the 20 highest-paid US private equity or hedge fund managers made last year.
Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos wants a salary cap for Dutch business leaders, according to Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The newspaper reports that Bos believes executive salaries are too high and that the relation between reward and performance is no longer clear. The paper said the minister had been in discussions with representatives from Shell, Akzo Nobel, ABN Amro and Philips.
UK ethical investors are quids in this year, according to research by Moneyfacts, the on-line search engine which found that returns from SRI funds had returned 18.3% in the past year compared with 13.7% from the average non-ethical option.
French bank Société Générale has adopted the Equator Principles on responsible environmental and social policies in project finance lending. Last month, the bank came under fire from WEED (World, Economy, Ecology & Development) a German-based consortium of NGOs, for its part financing, along with Germany’s DekaBank, and Bank Austria, of €1.1bn ($1.47 bn)
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