Norway’s Oil Fund Jettisons Coal-linked Investments

Norway’s $860bn oil fund will no longer put money into 52 companies for being too reliant on coal in one of the biggest ever fossil fuel-related divestment by a single investor. The world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund is no longer able to invest in a number of companies including Drax in the UK, AES, Dynegy and FirstEnergy in the US, Reliance Power and Tata Power in India, and a string of Chinese groups. The oil fund has long been seen as one of the pioneers of responsible or ethical investing and it has stepped up its work in recent years. It now plays a more active role in the selection of board directors in many European countries and has begun to publish some of its voting intentions ahead of annual meetings, instead of just disclosing its votes afterwards. Among the exclusions on Thursday was Peabody Energy, the coal miner that this week filed for bankruptcy protection. Other exclusions include: China Coal Energy, China Power International Development, China Resources Power Holdings, China Shenhua Energy, Datang International Power Generation, and Yanzhou Coal Mining. (FT)