COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said on Monday it had decided to exclude six companies with connections to the West Bank and Gaza from its portfolio, following an ethics review of its Israeli investments.
The $2 trillion wealth fund did not name the companies it had decided to exclude, but said these would be made public, along with specific reasons for each company, once the divestment was completed.
The announcement follows an urgent review launched this month after reports that the fund had built a stake in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel’s armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.
The fund’s ethics council watchdog said it would continue to assess Israeli companies every quarter.
Exclusions from the fund are based on recommendations from the fund’s ethics watchdog.
The fund had also separately sold stakes in several other companies that were not part of the ethics review, it said, following a decision last week to only hold stakes in Israeli companies that are part of the fund’s benchmark index.
As of August 14, the fund had 19 billion crowns ($1.86 billion) invested in 38 companies listed in Israel, it said, noting this was a reduction of 23 companies since June 30.
The number of companies will decline further once the six ethics-based divestments are made, it said.
The fund announced last Monday that it was terminating contracts with all three of its external asset managers who handled some of its Israeli investments.
Norway’s parliament in June rejected a proposal for the fund to divest from all companies with activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
($1 = 10.1932 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
