Pension rethinks Sudan securities
BOISE – Idaho’s public pension fund managers have reversed course and now say they will consider shifting $41 million of investments in companies with ties to Sudan after pressure from a group that says the money is going to finance genocide.
The decision comes after a state Senate committee earlier this month declined to force the Public Employees Retirement System of Idaho to dump the securities.
Then, a majority of the Senate Commerce and Human Resources Committee thought the $11 billion fund’s managers should be allowed to make investment decisions based on sound financial grounds, not social policy.
But this week, some state employees and retirees who have their retirement funds invested with PERSI, along with some Sudanese immigrants to Idaho, protested outside a board meeting in Boise.
Jody Olson, the pension fund’s chairman, said the Sudan case is worth considering because of the several dozen employee retirees who have requested it, because of the severity of the genocide, and because pulling financial support from the Sudanese government could actually have an impact there.
“It’s a horrible, horrible situation – uniquely horrible – and perhaps can be affected by our participation,” Olson told the Idaho Statesman. “We will either divest or find out why we can’t. We certainly don’t support genocide.”
An estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in the Darfur region of oil-rich Sudan.
John Sullivan, a Boise lawyer working with the Washington, D.C.-based Sudan Divestment Task Force that’s pushing similar legislation in other states, said Tuesday he believes the 115,000 people whose retirement savings are overseen by PERSI don’t want their money invested in companies whose payments to the Sudanese government may be financing the Darfur violence, which President George Bush has called genocide.
Despite Olson’s pledge to consider several options, including creating a divested investment option for state employees, Sullivan said he’s skeptical the board will seriously consider divestment.
“The only reason they have offered anything today is because they have received so much pressure from their retiree members who are expressing their moral outrage at the behavior of this board,” he said.
Earlier this month, PERSI director Alan Winkle had recommended against divesting shares in Petrochina and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical, two Chinese state-owned companies; French turbine maker Alstom; Swedish energy exploration company Lundin; Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas; and British-based Rolls Royce Group.
Since the Senate agreed with Winkle on Feb. 8, however, the board has received calls and letters from dozens of PERSI members wanting divestment.
Olson said he now wants to consider what other states have done, and whether it would work for Idaho.
At least six states have passed similar divestiture laws, most recently California in September, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger invoked images of the Holocaust. Oregon’s fund has opted to sell securities of companies with ties to Sudan. Other states are also considering legislation, including Colorado and Nebraska.