C of E bodies sell £1.9m holdings in News Corporation
Poorly treated: Bob and Sally Dowler, parents of the murdered
teenager Milly Dowler, arrive to give evidence at the Leveson
Inquiry into media ethics, in November. Reporters at the
now-defunct News of the World, owned by News Corp, had
hacked into Milly's phone, after her disappearance in
2002
Credit: PA
Poorly treated: Bob and Sally Dowler, parents of the murdered
teenager Milly Dowler, arrive to give evidence at the Leveson
Inquiry into media ethics, in November. Reporters at the
now-defunct News of the World, owned by News Corp, had
hacked into Milly's phone, after her disappearance in
2002
THE Church of England's national investment bodies have
disinvested from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, because the
com- pany has not brought about "sufficient change" since the
phone-hacking scandal at The News of the
World.
On Monday, Church House announced that the Church Commissioners
and the C of E Pensions Board had sold their stock in News
Corporation. At the time of selling, their holdings were worth a
total of £1.9 million. The other main C of E investment body, the
CBF Church of England Funds, has never owned shares in the
company.
In a statement issued by Church House on Tuesday, the secretary
of the Church Commissioners, Andrew Brown, said that the
phone-hacking revelations had "raised some serious concerns amongst
the Church's investing bodies about our holding in News
Corporation". The decision to disinvest followed a year of
"continuous dialogue" between News Corporation and the C of E
Investment Advisory Group (EIAG), which makes recommendations on
ethical-investment policy to the Church's bodies.
The EIAG had made a number of recommendations about corporate
governance at News Corporation, but it "does not feel that the
company has brought about sufficient change, and we have accepted
its advice to disinvest".
Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Brown said that the details of talks
with News Corporation were confidential; but the EIAG, if it were
still a shareholder, would have supported a resolution brought by a
Roman Catholic fund in the US, Christian Brothers Investment
Services, calling for the appointment of an independent
chairman.
Mr Brown said that the Commissioners had received many letters
expressing concern about News Corporation.
The Commissioners' annual report and accounts for 2011 showed
that the EIAG held "35 engagement meetings" with companies last
year to talk about issues such as environmental sustainability and
human rights (
News, 18 May).
Two years ago, the Commissioners and the Pensions Board sold
their £3.8-million investment in Vedanta Resources, an Indian
mining company, over its human-rights record (
News, 12 February 2010).
The C of E bodies would not invest "in companies involved in
military products and services, pornography, alcoholic drinks,
gambling, tobacco, human embryonic cloning, and high-interest-rate
lending", the Church House statement said.
On Wednesday, News Corporation posted a quarterly loss of $1.55
billion, after taking $2.85 billion of restructuring and impairment
charges. A year ago, the company posted a quarterly profit, for the
same fourth-quarter period, of $683 million.
Question of the Week: Were
C of E bodies right to disinvest from News Corp?