Norway’s largest pension fund sells off groups linked to Israeli settlements
KLP divests assets from Motorola, 15 other firms
Norwegian pension fund KLP announces a divestment in 16 companies with links to Israeli settlements, citing the UN’s revelation of 112 businesses with such connections, in February last year. – Washington Institute pic, July 5, 2021
OSLO – Norway’s largest pension fund announced today it had divested assets in 16 companies for their links to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including telecom equipment giant Motorola.
“Motorola and other companies risk complicity in international law violations in occupied Palestine,” KLP, which manages some €80 billion (RM394.13 billion) worth of assets, said in a statement.
The divestment follows the February 2020 UN publication of a list of 112 companies with activities linked to Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law.
Israel’s government has denounced the publication of the list – which included companies like Airbnb, Expedia, Motorola and Tripadvisor – as a “contemptible effort”.
“Divesting from Motorola Solutions was a very straightforward decision over its surveillance role in the occupied territories,” KLP said, arguing the company provides software used in border surveillance.
KLP also divested telecom operators offering services within the West Bank as they contributed to making “the settlements attractive residential areas.”
These included Altice Europe, Bezeq, Cellcom Israel and Partner Communications.
Also included are five banks that facilitated or financed the construction of housing and infrastructure in occupied territories, as well as engineering and construction groups, including the French multinational Alstom.
In late June, KLP announced its divestment of the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military junta.
Another Norwegian fund, the sovereign wealth fund, which is the largest in the world, has also excluded several companies in the past because of their connections to Israeli settlements.
The occupation of Palestinian territories is considered illegal by the United Nations.
More than 600,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where tensions often flare up between settlers and the Palestinian population. – AFP, July 5, 2021
“Motorola and other companies risk complicity in international law violations in occupied Palestine,” KLP, which manages some €80 billion (RM394.13 billion) worth of assets, said in a statement.
The divestment follows the February 2020 UN publication of a list of 112 companies with activities linked to Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law.
Israel’s government has denounced the publication of the list – which included companies like Airbnb, Expedia, Motorola and Tripadvisor – as a “contemptible effort”.
“Divesting from Motorola Solutions was a very straightforward decision over its surveillance role in the occupied territories,” KLP said, arguing the company provides software used in border surveillance.
KLP also divested telecom operators offering services within the West Bank as they contributed to making “the settlements attractive residential areas.”
These included Altice Europe, Bezeq, Cellcom Israel and Partner Communications.
Also included are five banks that facilitated or financed the construction of housing and infrastructure in occupied territories, as well as engineering and construction groups, including the French multinational Alstom.
In late June, KLP announced its divestment of the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military junta.
Another Norwegian fund, the sovereign wealth fund, which is the largest in the world, has also excluded several companies in the past because of their connections to Israeli settlements.
The occupation of Palestinian territories is considered illegal by the United Nations.
More than 600,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where tensions often flare up between settlers and the Palestinian population. – AFP, July 5, 2021
These 16 companies, some global behemoths, with market capitalization of billions and KLP sold a grand total of 31.3 million dollars of their shares.
ReplyDeleteThat's not even a grain of sand on the banks of the Dead Sea.
The wealth fund recently also examined (& probably quietly disposed) their investments in companies who have invested in Xinjiang......that may include more western companies.....so fair's fair....it is their money.
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JULY 6, 2021
UPDATE 4-Nordic fund KLP excludes 16 companies over links to Israeli settlements in West Bank
By Gwladys Fouche, Simon Jessop
* Motorola Solutions, Alstom among those excluded
* Others span banking, telecoms, construction...
OSLO, July 5 (Reuters)
.....KLP, which had $70 billion worth of assets under management at the end of the first quarter, said it had sold shares in the companies worth 275 million crowns ($31.81 million) and as of June had completed the process....
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Norway wealth fund to probe whether firms could be using forced labour from China's Xinjiang
By Gwladys Fouche
March 10, 2021
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway’s $1.3 trillion wealth fund will probe whether companies it is invested in may be using the labour of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims linked to China’s internment camps in far western Xinjiang, the head of the fund’s ethics watchdog said.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which has massive market influence because it owns 1.5% of the world’s listed shares across 9,100 companies, operates under ethical guidelines set by parliament.
Johan H. Andresen, chair of the fund’s Council on Ethics, said the fund had begun identifying companies that it said used workers that had been held in internment camps in Xinjiang.
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happy for you Norway is eff-ing China - but don't get too orgasmic lah
DeleteNot only their wealth fund, Norway's Telenor dropped Huawei some time ago, but no Song and Dance then.
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Norway's Telenor drops Huawei for Ericsson in 5G contract
KELVIN CHAN
December 13, 2019
LONDON (AP) — Norway's biggest wireless carrier, Telenor, on Friday chose Sweden's Ericsson to supply part of its new 5G network, ending its cooperation with Chinese tech giant Huawei after a decade.
The company signaled it would gradually remove Huawei equipment as it upgrades radio gear for the next generation of mobile networks, in a move likely to please the U.S., which has been lobbying European allies to sideline the Chinese company over cyberespionage concerns.
The company “carried out an extensive security evaluation" in its selection process, alongside considering factors such as technical quality, commercial terms and the ability to innovate and modernize, Telenor Group CEO Sigve Brekke said.
“Based on the comprehensive and holistic evaluation, we have decided to introduce a new partner for this important technology shift in Norway,” Brekke said.
Telenor, which is moving away from Huawei a decade after they started collaborating, said it will continue to use its existing equipment from the Chinese company as it transitions to the new network over the next four to five years. It has already chosen Ericsson and Finland's Nokia to build the 5G network's core.
Telenor has mobile operations in Nordic countries but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.
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Hope those US shareholders of Alibaba, ByteDance and other Chinese "tech-stocks", etc do likewise, sell off their shareholding to any other non China-haters and not behave like hypocrites on one hand making Chinese Renminbi and on the hand bad-mouthing China.
DeleteWakakakakaka…
DeleteWould these yankee financial vultures do?
Even both the Norwegian sovereign & pension funds hold substantiate investment in the major Chinese big tech companies listed within & without China!
China is the only place in the world where they can grow the investments.
Even Bullyland herself is very angry with Didi Chuxing for making a stellar listing in NYSE, like other Bullyland techstocks make so many people rich in NYSE, after bringing Jack Ma to heel last year, other Chinese tech firms are getting bullied by their own Bullygomen.
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Financial Times
Christian Shepherd and Yuan Yang in Beijing
Beijing has broadened a crackdown on tech platforms, targeting more US-listed companies after ordering the removal of ride-sharing group Didi Chuxing from Chinese app stores in a move that sent tech shares tumbling.
The Cyberspace Administration of China on Monday announced that it was investigating Boss Zhipin, an online recruitment company, and Chinese truck-hailing apps Yunmanman and Huochebang, which merged in 2017 to form Full Truck Alliance. The platforms are not allowed to register new users while they are under investigation.
The CAC’s announcement cited suspected violations of China’s national security and cyber security laws, without providing details.
The regulatory crackdown sent tremors through Asian markets on Monday. Japanese group SoftBank, whose Vision Fund is a large Didi investor, fell 5.4 per cent, while internet groups Alibaba and Tencent dropped 2.9 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively, in Hong Kong.
Didi’s shares fell 5.3 per cent on Friday, two days after the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, having raised $4.4bn in the biggest listing by a Chinese company in the US since Alibaba in 2014.
In a statement, Didi denied that it was aware of the plans ahead of its IPO.
“Prior to the IPO, Didi had no knowledge of the CAC’s decisions, announced on July 2 and July 4 2021, with respect to the cyber security review and suspension of new user registrations in China, and the removal of the Didi Chuxing app from the app stores in China, respectively,” it said.
The crackdown by China’s cyber security regulator on Didi and others marked a new offensive on the country’s tech companies, invoking previously unused cyber security regulations. China’s financial and competition watchdogs have already reined in companies including Ant Group and Alibaba, two pillars of billionaire Jack Ma’s internet empire, and ecommerce group Meituan.
.....con't
...con't
ReplyDeleteLike Didi, Full Truck Alliance and Boss Zhipin listed in New York in June, raising $1.6bn and $912m, respectively.
The three tech groups are industry leaders in China, and are all backed by Tencent, China’s most valuable technology group, which has avoided the worst of the regulatory crackdown.
The CAC said the probes were being conducted under new cyber space procedures enacted on June 1 that strengthened oversight of companies operating critical information technology infrastructure that could touch on national security.
“[Chinese] regulators’ statements over recent months make it clear that companies’ first responsibility is to ensure data security before going abroad,” said Kendra Schaefer, technology analyst at Trivium, a Beijing-based consultancy. “The message is: companies are welcome to IPO overseas so long as their domestic house is in order first.”
The Global Times, a nationalist Chinese state-run tabloid, said that Didi’s international shareholders — which also include US ride-hailing group Uber — meant that protecting users’ personal information was a national security issue.
“An internet giant absolutely cannot have a better command than the state of the super-database that is Chinese people’s personal data,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial on Monday.
The crackdown began on Friday when the CAC announced it was investigating Didi, telling the company to stop registering new users and drivers for its app.
On Sunday, the CAC ordered that Didi be removed from Chinese app stores. The company responded that it would “resolutely implement” authorities’ demands.
The latest crackdown came as 34 Chinese companies raised a record $12.4bn in New York floats in the first half of 2021. However, more than two-thirds of Chinese groups have fallen below their initial public offering price.
US regulators have intensified scrutiny of Chinese companies listing in the country after Luckin Coffee fabricated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales in a scandal that fed longstanding fears about auditing standards and transparency.
Under a law passed in December, Chinese companies trading on American exchanges face the threat of delisting unless they give US authorities access to audit accounts, which is banned by Beijing.
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Wakakakakaka…
DeleteKeen to work yr monotonous c&p to ease yr boring life under that fart filled well!
"American exchanges face the threat of delisting unless they give US authorities access to audit accounts, which is banned by Beijing"
vis-a-vis
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a law called the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, which was passed by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
Certain companies identified by the SEC will require auditing by a U.S. watchdog. These companies will be required to submit certain documents to establish that they are not owned or controlled by a governmental entity in a foreign jurisdiction.
Yr f*cked fake news is lying through the teeth while u polish them!
Blurred mfer turns genuflecting doggie.
TS = Tong Sampah
DeleteWa ka ka ka ka
That's why he's polluting this site with the garbage he scrapes out from the wide net and making a big tong noise with his Tipu and Rampas howling and whining
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteTrue to the saying of fact plays itself out, most time subconscious as in Freudian slip.
HY - a spurious Chinese serf
TS - a tong sampah
Monster - as the sign implied with the iniquitous intent blank out.