Anti-Genocide Proposal Fails For Four More Fidelity Funds
16 July 2009 - 12:08AM
Dow Jones News
Investors in four more Fidelity Investments funds have voted
down a proposal pushed by an outside activist group to install
rules against investing in companies linked to genocide.
The latest rejections, announced Wednesday during a Fidelity
shareholder meeting, follow votes against an anti-genocide proposal
in more than a dozen Fidelity funds last year. The proposal has
netted some support, reaching as high as 31% of the votes in one
case last year and as much as 24.6% Wednesday, but Fidelity has not
backed the measure.
The proposal was brought by Boston-based Investors Against
Genocide, which wants Fidelity to disengage from investing in a
handful of companies - most notably PetroChina Co. (PTR) and its
parent China National Petroleum Corp. - that have links with the
government in Sudan, where the U.S. government has called militia
attacks in the Darfur region a genocide.
None of the funds at issue on Wednesday - including Fidelity's
huge Cash Reserves mutual fund - invest in the targeted companies,
according to Investors Against Genocide. But the activist group,
which has also taken its case to other mutual-fund companies, is
seeking to set a trend through whichever funds it can reach.
The group asks investors to voluntary submit anti-genocide
proposals so that they can be wrapped in when internal proposals
cause fund companies to schedule votes. It seeks a flexible policy
that will allow Fidelity to also address future humanitarian
disasters.
Fidelity has said that it's sensitive to the situation in Darfur
and "repulsed by genocide." But it has also urged shareholders to
vote against these proposals while saying that remaining engaged
with companies may be the best way to end practices they don't
condone.
The company has also noted that the proposal would limit lawful
investments.
-By Jon Kamp, Dow Jones Newswires; 617-654-6728;
jon.kamp@dowjones.com