In addition to civil service scheme ABP, two other large Dutch pension funds have also sold several companies blacklisted by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. PME and PFZW sold their stakes in Booking.com, Airbnb and others.
IPE reported earlier this week that the Netherlands’s largest pension fund ABP had sold its equity stakes in several companies that are on a UN Human Rights Council list of 158 companies deemed to contribute to human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
PME, the €58bn Dutch pension fund, told IPE in an email that it had sold its stakes in travel companies Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia, as well as an investment in Motorola, an American manufacturer of communication equipment.
In addition, companies that are not on the UN list in question but which, according to the fund, likely contribute to the violation of human rights in the West Bank, were also sold.
These include the Mexican construction company Cemex, online travel agency eDreams Odigeo and France’s Alstom. The latter firm is working on a light rail connection that will connect Jerusalem with a number of illegal Israeli settlements.
These companies were previously on the UN list, but have been removed from it in the latest version. It is not clear why the UN has done this.
“We engaged with these companies, and concluded that they are likely still contributing to human rights violations in the West Bank. We have therefore decided to divest,” a PME spokesperson told IPE.
The value of the shares and corporate bonds sold by the pension fund amounted to almost €151m.
PFZW
Healthcare sector pension fund PFZW, for its part, has sold its equity holdings in Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia, which were valued at around €300m, according to data from Bloomberg.
PFZW declined to say why it sold its shares in the three travel companies, which offer accommodations in illegal Israeli settlements.
However, a PFZW spokesperson noted that the companies the €248bn fund invests in must meet certain minimum standards, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN’s Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, in order to be investable.
He said: “Where companies could possibly bear responsibility for human rights violations, we have the policy means to engage with such companies, and we can proceed to sell as a last resort measure. We do not make any announcements about such engagement processes.”
PMT
Metals industry pension fund PMT, which had investments in Booking.com, Expedia and Airbnb, among others, at the end of the first quarter, is also considering steps in response to the new report by the UN Human Rights Council.
This could mean divestment, but also the start of a dialogue, according to a spokesperson.
Previously, PMT sold shares and corporate bonds of Motorola and Caterpillar because of their involvement in human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, after engagement with the two companies had yielded insufficient results.
This article was first published on Pensioen Pro, IPE’s Dutch sister publication
No comments yet