Investors Pushing Funds to Get Out of Sudan

When Fidelity Investments investor Eric Cohen found out that the fund giant had a big stake in PetroChina, which does business in Sudan, he launched FidelityOutOfSudan.com to try and convince Fidelity to sell stocks in companies making a profit in the war-torn region, many of them energy-related firms, USA Today reports. Since then, Cohen has convinced 4,000 people to sign a petition urging Fidelity to reconsider its investments.

But when Cohen found out from a recent SEC filing that Fidelity owns more than 5% of PetroChina’s outstanding shares, he was shocked.

“We went from ‘Wow’ to ‘Double Wow,’” Cohen said.

Big institutional investors are also pushing mutual funds to liquidate Sudan-related holdings, including the pension plans of seven states—California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont—and scores of university endowments.

The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.