Nearly four years after the California Assembly ordered the state’s largest public pension fund to divest from companies doing business with Iran, divestment supporters can finally utter the words “mission accomplished.”
On May 16, the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) adopted a plan to divest all remaining shares of companies that have dealings with Iran, as well as Sudan. Some of those companies have included Royal Dutch Shell and the Russian energy giant Gazprom.
CalPERS did not issue a timetable as to when the stock sale would be complete. According to a May 16 Sacramento Bee story, the pension fund holds stock in eight companies tied to Iran, with a total value of $160 million.
“A lot of people worked very hard to get to this point,” said Michael Sweet, vice chairman of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council and chairman of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee (JPAC), which lobbied for divestment. “I’m glad we were able to get this result. I’m sorry it took so long.”
With the passage of AB 221, the Iran Divestment Act of 2007, CalPERS and CalSTRS (the teachers’ pension) were both compelled to begin a divestment process. While CalSTRS took steps to comply, the much larger CalPERS (valued at more than $230 billion) resisted, citing fiduciary responsibility to its pensioners as the main reason it forestalled divestment.
This despite pressure from many lawmakers, including then–Attorney General Jerry Brown, and Jewish groups such as JPAC, which represents community federations, community relations councils and other Jewish advocacy groups.
Joel Anderson, the former state assemblyman from Southern California — now a state senator — who wrote AB 221, says relentless pressure from concerned groups accounts for the shift.
“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for the support of the Jewish community and the Iranian community,” Anderson said. “We had torture victims from Iran, Holocaust survivors, JPAC, AIPAC, all walks of life [testifying]. People fundamentally understood that parking money in Iran is a poor decision.”
Sweet says other stars had aligned to trigger CalPERS’ sudden compliance. Part of that is Anderson’s Senate Bill 903, which would enforce further restrictions on the pension funds when it came to investment in Iran, making public any internal conversations on the subject.
“They saw the writing on the wall,” Sweet said. “They didn’t want to be able to say they weren’t complying with the law.”
Akiva Tor, the consul general of the Consulate of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, was pleased with CalPERS’ decision to divest from Iran, calling it “both wise investment policy for California pensioners and an important step forward for the global effort to stop Iran’s nuclear effort.
“It’s one of those rare moments when prudent policy and doing the right thing meet together,” he added. “California is probably the most innovative and forward-thinking state in the union, and I hope it will continue to lead in finding new economic means to isolate Iran.”