Results and press coverage of voting on genocide-free investing
March 19, 2008, marked a milestone on the path to genocide-free investing. Two of
twelve Fidelity funds slated to vote achieved a quorum and reported
results. An unexpected 26.906% of shareholders of the Capital and Income Fund and
29.066% of the shareholders of Select Health Care Portfolio voted in favor of
genocide-free investing.
These results are striking and heartening in several respects.
First, it is unprecedented for a shareholder proposal related to a social issue to receive such a high percentage of votes in the first round of voting. Second, these percentages are skewed by the institutional shareholders that voted on this question and therefore do not accurately represent the large numbers of individual shareholders who voted in favor of the genocide-free proposal. Third, due to the shortened timeframe of Fidelity’s distribution of proxy materials, many shareholders were not aware of this unprecedented opportunity to vote for genocide-free investing and therefore did not cast their proxy ballots.
First, it is unprecedented for a shareholder proposal related to a social issue to receive such a high percentage of votes in the first round of voting. Second, these percentages are skewed by the institutional shareholders that voted on this question and therefore do not accurately represent the large numbers of individual shareholders who voted in favor of the genocide-free proposal. Third, due to the shortened timeframe of Fidelity’s distribution of proxy materials, many shareholders were not aware of this unprecedented opportunity to vote for genocide-free investing and therefore did not cast their proxy ballots.
For the 10 of the 12 funds slated to vote on March 19 that did not achieve a quorum, including the $72.9 billion Contrafund, we now have additional time to inform the hundreds of thousands of individual investors about this important opportunity to vote their conscience in favor of genocide-free investing. Not only will this same question be voted upon at Fidelity shareholders meeting on April 16 and May 14 but it will continue to be presented to shareholders at a wide range of mutual fund companies including Barclays, Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price, and Vanguard among others in coming months.
As reported in the 2007 study by KRC Research, American investors have confirmed that they do not want their hard-earned savings invested in companies that help to fund genocide. The study reports that 71% of respondents said companies should take into account extreme cases of human rights abuses, such as genocide, when investing overseas, rather than base their investment decisions on economic criteria only.
Over time, as more and more individual investors understand this issue and vote their proxies according to their values, we are confident that genocide-free investing will be endorsed by a large majority of individual investors and our mutual funds will become genocide-free.
The unprecedented vote on March 19 has received significant press coverage, as you can see below.
- Click here to listen to the NPR Morning Edition coverage.
- Read more coverage from AP, Reuters, and Fox Business News in the Press archive here.
- Watch Boston Globe video from the protest at Fidelity.
- Click here for Eric Cohen's statement at the shareholder meeting.
Listen to the press conference that followed the shareholder meeting
Investors Against Genocide hosted a press conference after the shareholder meeting at Fidelity on March 19, 2008. The press conference featured short statements by five speakers, followed by Q&A with the press.
- Eric Cohen – Chairperson, Investors Against Genocide – statement here
- Mia Farrow – Actress, Activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
- Jim McGovern – U.S.
Congressman, 3rd District of Massachusetts – statement here
- Susannah Sirkin – Deputy Director, Physicians for Human Rights
- Tim Brennan – Treasurer and Vice President, Finance, Unitarian Universalist Association– statement here
- Total time 29:46
- To skip ahead, start streaming audio then drag the red line at the tip of the handle forward repeatedly.