UK Insurer Aviva To Halt Tobacco Investments

Source from:  Financial Times 06/22/2017

Aviva, one of the UK’s biggest life insurance companies, is to ditch its tobacco investments.

The group joins a growing wave of companies which have divested from tobacco. Axa promised to get rid of its tobacco investments last year, and more recently Scor and the Irish sovereign wealth fund have agreed to do the same.

Aviva had about ￡1bn of investments in the industry. The equities have almost all been sold, while the bond investments will be left to run off.

Aviva’s divestment only affects securities that it manages on behalf of its own shareholders. The company will continue to invest in tobacco on behalf of third parties.

Tobacco Free Portfolios, a pressure group, estimates that $4bn has been divested from tobacco by financial institutions around the world in recent years. Enditem