UK: Value of County Council''s Tobacco Shares Increase Despite A Review of the Investment Plan

Source from:  East Anglian Daily Times 11/19/2014

Four months after members of Suffolk County Council voted overwhelmingly to end its pension fund investment in tobacco companies, the value of its shareholding in them has risen significantly.

And it holds more shares in tobacco companies than it did in August.

Pressure on the county to disinvest in tobacco companies has been rising since the council took on public health responsibilities in 2013 - and staff were transferred from the NHS pension scheme into the Suffolk fund.

Many of these health professionals felt it was wrong that they were trying to persuade smokers to give up, but their pension fund was investing money in tobacco companies.

The county voted in July to ask its pension committee to disinvest in tobacco companies once equally-high performing shares had been identified.

However this decision was not binding because the fund also manages the pensions of other public-sector employees, including those from district and borough councils, town and parish councils, and other linked organisations like Ipswich Buses.

In September the pension fund decided to look at the question of disinvesting, and started consulting the other authorities.

At its meeting next week, the committee is to be asked to undertake further consultations with members of the pension fund and to be prepared to make a final decision in February next year.

However documents to be taken into consideration reveal that the amount of money held in pension funds increased from £37.8 million to £40 million between August and October - about 2% of the total value of the fund.

The total number of shares in tobacco companies held by the pension fund increased from just under 626,000 to nearly 645,000 during the same period.

The opposition Labour group at the county council has been leading calls at a political level for the disinvestment.

Bryony Rudkin, who will be representing the party at next week's pension committee meeting, said the rise in the number of shares held represented a "lack of leadership" following the July decision.

She said: "I appreciate the decision has not yet made to disinvest in tobacco, but I would have thought it would have been a good idea for someone to say to the fund managers it would not be a good idea to buy more tobacco shares at this time."

"From that point of view it does look a bit like a lack of leadership - but we shall have to press on with things at the committee."

The chair of the pensions committee, Peter Bellfield, said the fund managers had been given no instructions about selling tobacco shares at this stage.

"We are still consulting on this, and during this time we have given no new instructions. It is business as usual at the moment." Enditem