Shares in the arms and tobacco industry

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Dear Queen's College, Oxford,

I am writing to request information on the financial relationships the college holds with the arms and tobacco trade (specifically, but not limited to:

- BAE Systems
- Rolls-Royce
- Smiths Group
- Cobham
- Elbit
- Finmeccanica
- GKN
- QinetiQ
- VT Group
- Halliburton,
- United Technologies
- Airbus SE
- Lockheed Martin
- Caterpillar Inc,
- General Dynamics
- Raytheon
- Northrop Grumman
- Raytheon, Textron and Thales Group
- L3 communications

- Philip Morris
- British American Tobacco
- Altria
- Imperial Brands

Please include the following information:

1) A portfolio statement for the fund(s) the college has investments in. If you do not have a copy of this, please send me a list of the names of the fund(s) and the corresponding management companies. Details should be broken down, year-by-year for the last five financial years.

2) Please also confirm if any shares are held in arms trade companies as part of a pension fund or endowment, either directly or indirectly through an externally managed fund. Details should be broken down, year-by-year for the last five financial years.

I would wholeheartedly encourage the university to adopt an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade, and would appreciate it if you could tell me if this is something that the university is working towards.

Yours faithfully,

Sarah Woolley

Andrew Timms, Queen's College, Oxford

1 Attachment

Dear Sarah,

 

Thank you for your email of 30 June, which has been considered under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. We apologise for the delayed response.

 

The College holds some but not all of the information cited in your
request. I have indicated below where the information is not held.

 

The answers to your specific queries are as follows:

 

The College does not invest directly in company shares. Most of our equity
investments are nowadays held in passive funds, which aim to replicate the
performance of particular market indexes. These indexes encompass shares
in at least some of the companies listed in your request.

 

 1. We do not hold portfolio statements. The names of the funds held in
the five years cited are in the attached spreadsheet.

 

 2. We do not hold portfolio statements for the pension schemes in which
the College participates – you would need to ask the schemes
themselves for this information. They are: the Universities
Superannuation Scheme, and the University of Oxford Staff Pension
Scheme.

 

With respect to the University’s ethical investments, I’m afraid we do not
hold this information – you would have to direct this question to the
University of Oxford itself.

 

Best wishes,

 

Andrew Timms

Bursar