According to Extra Bladet, citing Ritsau, the AkademikerPensions pension fund has decided to exclude Israel from the world of the institution's investments.
This is because Israel's military action in Gaza violates the institution's policy on responsible investment, according to AkademikerPension's website.
The pension fund's chief executive, Jens Münch-Holst, says that Israel has committed human rights violations, and that they chose to exclude it based on a comprehensive assessment: “We have a policy that states that we cannot invest in countries that violate human rights. And of course, we also look at whether the country in question has a significant impact on our returns.”
Jens Münchholst explained that the pension company uses analyses from external research agencies when assessing whether a country has violated human rights.
The decision means that the Academiker Pension Foundation will no longer invest in Israeli government bonds or Israeli state-owned companies.
While the organization can continue to invest in privately owned Israeli companies.
However, Academicer Pension says it currently has no investments in private companies based in Israel.
At the general meeting in the spring of 2024, there were several organizations – including Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke – which called on AkademikerPension to exclude Israel.
There is no specific incident that prompted the pension fund to take this step now, according to Jens Münch Holst.
But overall, the pension fund’s assessment is that the situation has worsened, among other things, as a result of Israel’s blockade on emergency aid: “The human rights situation has deteriorated continuously, and continues to do so. Human rights violations are ongoing.”
AkademikerPension also has a number of countries on its exclusion list, including Russia, Iraq, Iran and China.
According to Jens Münch Holst, it usually takes a country two years to improve conditions before AkademikerPension removes the country from the exclusion list.
