Defence group BAE Systems has been “excluded” from investment by Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund for ethical reasons.
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) said BAE had been dropped from investment status by the state pension fund it runs because of the company’s “involvement in the production of key components for nuclear weapons”.
The pension fund’s ethics council said the decision came because BAE signed an eight-year deal in 2015 to maintain and upgrade America’s Trident and Minuteman missiles, noting that their “only function is to carry nuclear warheads”.
The decision to ditch BAE was made in March 2016, but only announced on Tuesday as the fund revealed a number of other companies had also been excluded.
Around the time of the decision, Norway's state pension fund had a 1.76pc stake in BAE, worth 3.7bn Norwegian kroner at the time (£340m).
NBIM also revealed that nuclear and energy groups AECOM, Fluor Corp, Huntington Ingalls Industries and Honeywell had been excluded for the same reasons as BAE.
The pension fund’s ethical council also said it had stopped investing in several shipping businesses because of environmental concerns.
The fund dropped Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp, Korea Line Corp and Thailand’s Precious Shipping and Thoresen Thai Agencies because the fund was worried about their practice of “beaching” old ships in Bangladesh and Pakistan for scrapping.
NBIM said breaking down these ships may cause environmental damage and also raised concerns about poor working conditions for staff scrapping the vessels.
Polish property development company Atal was also excluded over because the ethics council said it had subcontracted a company which used North Korean workers.
A spokesman for BAE said: ”We respect investors’ right to make investment decisions to their own criteria.”