Norway’s Biggest Pension Firm Exits Raytheon, Rolls-Royce on Nuclear Weapons Link

(Bloomberg) -- Norway’s largest pension company sold holdings totaling $147 million in companies including Raytheon Technologies and Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc due to their links to unconventional weapons such as nuclear armaments.

Kommunal Landspensjonskasse, or KLP, divested about $123 million in shares and $24 million in bonds in 14 weapons companies, the public sector pension provider said in a statement. 

“The companies that have now been excluded produce various components for nuclear weapons or cluster munitions, or provide support services for such armaments,” KLP said. “Under international law, these types of weapons are problematic.”

The fund manager, which oversees assets worth about $90 billion, cited the need to apply “more stringent standards with respect to companies that contribute to the continuing existence of nuclear weapons” after the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons came into force in January.

KLP had previously sold out of 22 companies for links to controversial weapons and has also divested oil sand producers, coal companies, alcohol makers and firms in the gambling sector.

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