Darfur Divestment At Harvard Successful!

[NATO AIR]

and could further build momentum for ethical investing of all types

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12813752^643,00.html

Harvard sale of tainted stock stirs ethical pot
David Nason
April 11, 2005

WHEN it comes to the performance of managed funds, few institutions can match the "wow" factor of the Harvard University endowment.

Managed by investment guru Jack Meyer, the endowment earned a whopping 21.1 per cent return in 2003-04, a result that increased the total value of the fund to a staggering $US22.6 billion ($29.3 billion).

This amount is larger than the annual budget of about 150 nations and almost double the size of the next largest university endowment, at Yale.

The 2004 result followed a 12.1 per cent return in 2002-03, a year when Meyer's Harvard Management Company beat benchmarks in eight of 11 asset divisions and when the median performance of endowments was just 4 per cent.

And in the three tough fiscal years before that, HMC produced a cumulative return of almost 9 per cent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 lost 29 per cent.

Now, the Harvard endowment is wowing the market again, this time for an out-of-character ethical investing decision in the name of human rights in Sudan.

HMC has been directed by the university's ruling Harvard Corporation to sell 67,200 shares in PetroChina, a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Company.

The Beijing-based oil giant has pumped $US1 billion into a joint venture with Sudan to increase the country's oil revenues. According to the Harvard student activists who lobbied for the divestment – and who surprised everyone last week when they succeeded – the money helps the Sudanese Government fund the genocide now occurring in Darfur.
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