Voya

Investors Against Genocide engaged extensively with Voya, including submitting and defending shareholder proposals for genocide-free investing. Voya made progress in investment policies for some but not all of their investments/funds. We appreciated the improvements in Voya’s policies, which resulted in only a few funds being exposed to PetroChina and Sinopec holdings. Overall, the engagement with Voya was partially successful. Investors Against Genocide is no longer engaging Voya.

Voya, along with many financial institutions, had invested in the handful of foreign oil companies which helped to fund the government of Sudan’s deadly campaign of violence against millions of its citizens. Voya does not have a company-wide genocide-free investing policy. Voya was never a large holder of either PetroChina and Sinopec, but did hold small amounts.

Voya is the new corporate name for the old ING US mutual funds.

Shareholders at the ING Emerging Countries Fund approved the genocide-free investing proposal by a wide margin in a vote on June 28, 2012.  The proposal passed 59.8% to 10.7% with 29.5% abstaining.   (That result shows 85% of the yes/no votes in favor.) This decisive win at Voya (which was then ING) was a first for the genocide-free investing proposal and affirms our earlier research showing that the vast majority of Americans want to avoid investments tied to genocide. Read the news here.

A year after the vote, Voya (ING) informed Investors Against Genocide of its decision to take no action to implement genocide-free investing despite the 2012 proxy vote which strongly endorsed having genocide-free investing policy.

On August 7, 2013, a coalition of investors called on Voya (ING) to reconsider its decision to disregard the results of the proxy vote. Read more about the letter here.

Since Voya had not yet made an effort to avoid investments tied to genocide, Investors Against Genocide submitted proposals on genocide-free investing for voting at the Voya corporate shareholder meetings beginning with 2015. Read more about proxy voting at Voya here.

  • Has a genocide-free investing policy
  • Divested from PetroChina
  • Voted for GFI shareholder proposal