Amherst Divests from Sudan-Linked Firms

Amherst College will divest from firms that conduct business with the Sudanese government, which has been accused of facilitating the ongoing genocide in Darfur, the Massachusetts liberal arts school announced yesterday.

The decision comes nine months after Harvard, in response to student pressure, voted to sell its stake in Beijing oil firm PetroChina, which is controlled by the China National Petroleum Corporation.

But Amherst went still further than Harvard, divesting from 18 other firms, including several in which Harvard still owned shares as of Sept. 30, 2005.

Those stocks include energy company Royal Dutch Shell, oil field services firm Schlumberger Ltd., Russian oil company AO Tatneft, and oil firm China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec.

Amherst’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously on Jan. 14 to sell any direct holdings in the companies and to bar future investments. Amherst does not hold any shares directly. Instead, the school said a “small number” of outside fund managers who invest on Amherst’s behalf do hold shares of some of the companies, and will be instructed to divest.

“We want to be sure that our investment managers understand our stance on this important issue as they consider their own investments,” said Amherst trustee Bill Ford, chair of the board’s Investment Committee, in a press release.

In June 2005, Stanford became the second major school to divest from firms linked to Sudan, announcing that it would sell direct stakes in PetroChina, Sinopec, Tatneft, and power and automation equipment company ABB Ltd. Elsewhere, at Yale, an advisory committee is preparing a report on whether the school should divest from companies tied to Sudan.

—NICHOLAS M. CIARELLI