NEW YORK (JTA) — New York State’s retirement fund will divest from nine companies doing business in Iran, the state’s comptroller said.
At a news conference Tuesday, Thomas DiNapoli said he was divesting $86.2 million in New York State Common Retirement Fund investments from the firms doing business in Iran and Sudan.
The targeted companies are Gazprom, Inpex, Lukoil, Oil And Natural Gas Corp, OMV, Petroleo Brasilia, Statoil, Wartsila OYJ and Sinopec Corp., Dow Jones reported.
“We’ve done our due diligence on these investments,” DiNapoli said in a news release. “These companies failed to meet even the minimum requirements of the risk mitigation programs we initiated two years ago. I have directed our external equity managers to liquidate our positions in these nine companies. Those managers will reallocate these assets to responsible investments that are economically indistinguishable.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Dow Jones that 14 states have implemented or plan to implement divestment legislation.
