Shell pension fund adopts ethical stance
Mark Cobley
30 Jun 2008
The Dutch pension fund for oil group Shell, Stichting Shell Pensioenfonds, one of the largest corporate schemes in the Netherlands, is overhauling its ethical policies and has sold out of one company that makes landmines.
It is reviewing other munitions companies, particularly those involved in making cluster bombs.
The Shell fund joins a growing movement among big European institutional investors against unethical defence companies.
The 9.6bn ($15.1bn) Swedish state fund AP7 this month said it will sell all its holdings in cluster bomb manufacturers, including defence companies EADS, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.
Dutch public pension schemes ABP and PGGM also sold out of landmine and cluster bomb manufacturers last year, as has the 246bn Norwegian Government Pension Fund, a pool of sovereign wealth capital derived from the countrys oil revenues.
To help enforce its stance, the 19bn Shell scheme has hired Hermes Pensions Management to police its shareholdings, talk to company management and vote at annual meetings on its behalf through the London fund managers Eos service.
The Shell fund said in documents posted on its website that it had broadened its existing corporate governance policy to include social and environmental aspects of business management.
The fund is the 11th client of Eos, which advises on combined assets of £70bn (88.3bn), more than is managed conventionally by Hermes.
Eos has added several other clients to its roster this year, including VicSuper, an Australian pension fund, and Dutch media-sector plan PNO Media. Its engagement staff has expanded by about a quarter to 25 since January, according to Eos chief executive Colin Melvin.
The Eos service turned a profit for the first time in 2006, according to Hermes most recent accounts. Melvin said the subsidiary company is looking for a chairman, following the retirement of David Pitt-Watson.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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