PFZW divests all but seven oil and gas companies
The Dutch €238bn pension fund for the social care sector has sold all but seven of its 94 remaining oil and gas equity and credit holdings in the third stage of a major pivot of its portfolio that has seen it divest from energy majors including BP, Exxon Shell and Total. The holdings were valued at €2.8bn.
The fund will now direct its engagement programme to large-scale fossil fuel users, including power producers and manufacturers of carbon-intensive materials.
The move completes a two-year engagement programme and follows two successive waves of oil and gas divestment in October 2022 and last February, as IPE reported at the time.
Some 114 of 191 companies first contacted by PFZW in early 2022 as part of the engagement programme were deemed to have unsatisfactory CO2 transition plans, with holdings totalling €470m offloaded by autumn 2022. Stakes worth €303m in a further 78 companies were dumped by February 2023.
Holdings data for five of the seven companies still in the portfolio, last updated at end-July, states PFZW’s stakes were worth less than €100m.