College Investments And Links To Chinese Companies and Universities
Dear Selwyn College, Cambridge,
This is a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Could you please provide:
(1) A list of companies which the College holds stocks and shares in, specifying how many shares are held and the approximate value of the shareholding.
(2) A list of exchange traded funds, private equity funds, mutual funds, index funds, commodities, hedge funds, and bonds that the college has investments in, including the approximate value of each.
(3) In the case of any indirectly held or fund-based investments a breakdown of the companies invested in through the fund, including the percentage of the total fund made up by each holding.
(4) A list of donations from and other professorships, fellowships, institutes or any other academic opportunities funded by Chinese companies including, but not limited to:
- Huawei
- Alibaba
- Tencent
- China Electronics Technology Group Corporation
- Yitu
- Megvii
- SenseTime
- CloudWalk
- Hikvision
(5) A list of any other instances of cooperation, academic or otherwise, between the College and universities and companies based in China.
If you are to invoke Section 43 to withhold information in relation to any of these questions please note you must provide details of the exact FOIA exemption, details of who would be prejudiced by this information, and a public interest test justifying a conclusion with arguments for and against the release of the information.
If you are to invoke Section 12 to withhold information in relation to any of these questions please provide details of how locating, retrieving and extracting this information would exceed the appropriate limit of £450 as set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Please also be aware of your duty under section 16 (1) of the Act to advise and assist me in narrowing my request to bring it within the appropriate limit.
Thank you very much for your assistance with this request. If you would like any clarification on the information I have asked for, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I look forward to receiving your response in the next 20 working days.
Yours faithfully,
Oliver Walsh
Dear Oliver
Thank you for your request.
With respect to questions 1-3, disclosure of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the College. In particular, disclosure of the information in question would be likely to weaken the position of the College in a competitive environment by revealing commercially sensitive information of potential usefulness to other investors. For example, disclosure would place in the public domain information which would allow competitors to track and replicate some of the investment strategies of the College. Such disclosure would also involve divulging commercially sensitive information about individual portfolio companies which could prejudice the ability of the College to attract and retain investment advisors of suitable calibre in the future. Exemption 43(2) under the Act therefore applies.
With respect to question 4, the College has not received any donations from the companies referenced, nor has it any professorships or fellowships supported by those companies, in recent years. The College does not run any institutes itself. That is not to say that Fellows of the College may not have been supported by those companies in their university, rather than college, roles. You would need to ask the university about that.
With respect to question 5, the College has not as an entity taken part in any co-operation with universities or companies in China in recent years.
Kind regards
Martin
Martin Pierce
Bursar and FOI Officer, Selwyn College Cambridge
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