Norway fund blacklists Malaysia’ WTK, Tan Ann and 3 others for taking part in activities that damage the environment or for being linked to child labour

October 15, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Tuesday October 15, 2013 MYT 7:56:26 AM

Norway fund blacklists Malaysia’ WTK, Tan Ann and 3 others

PETALING JAYA: Norway has excluded five companies from the investments of the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, for taking part in activities that damage the environment or for being linked to child labour, Bloomberg reported. Local timber firms WTK Holdings Bhd and Ta Ann Holdings Bhd were excluded alongside China’s Zijin Mining Group and Peru’s Volcan Cia Minera SAA.This was done on the basis that their activities risk causing severe damage to the environment, Bloomberg said citing a statement by the Oslo-based ministry.

India’s Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd was also excluded “based on an assessment of the risk of contributing to the worst forms of child labour,” it said.

As at press time, WTK did not respond to e-mail queries by StarBiz on this matter while Ta Ann said its chief executive officer was travelling and that it shall try its best to respond “soonest”.

Bloomberg said the world’s largest wealth fund takes into account ethical rules encompassing human rights, some weapons production, the environment and tobacco when deciding on its investments.

It has excluded including Wal-Mart Stores Inc and British American Tobacco Plcfollowing recommendations from the ministry’s Ethics Council.

Filed under Macro Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment