Fidelity

Investors Against Genocide engaged extensively with Fidelity, including submitting and defending shareholder proposals for genocide-free investing for more than a decade. Ultimately, that engagement failed. Significantly, one fund manager at Fidelity made a major effort to avoid investments tied to genocide. However, Fidelity was not interested in having a genocide-free investing policy and consistently opposed genocide-free investing shareholder proposals. Investors Against Genocide is no longer engaging Fidelity.

Fidelity, along with many financial institutions, has 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. Fidelity does not have a genocide-free investing policy and had been one of the world’s largest owners of shares of both PetroChina and Sinopec, two of those oil companies. These investments, while legal, are inconsistent with U.S. sanctions explicitly prohibiting transactions relating to Sudan and Syria’s petroleum industries.

Since 2006, Fidelity has actively opposed changing its policies to avoid investments tied to genocide. In 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020, despite of Fidelity’s active opposition, shareholders voted their values and demonstrated strong levels of support of genocide-free investing. In 2017, 4 Fidelity funds recorded votes ranging from 30.8% to 39.9% of the yes/no votes in favor of genocide-free investing. In 2020, 21 Fidelity funds voted and voting results are still being filed with the SEC. The first results filed show votes ranging from 32.2% to 42.8% of the yes/no votes in favor of genocide-free investing. See the details of the voting results here. Read more about those votes here.

In February 2007, Fidelity’s stake in PetroChina reached $1.3 billion.  However, in the first half of 2007, one of Fidelity’s fund managers, William Danoff, sold all of his portfolio holdings in companies with ties to genocide, amounting to about half of the total that Fidelity held at that time and nearly all of what Fidelity held on the New York stock exchange. Since then, Fidelity has continued to be a large shareholder in PetroChina and Sinopec with most shares purchased on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Since Fidelity has made no commitment regarding divestment from PetroChina and Sinopec, investors entrusting their money to Fidelity mutual funds continue to risk inadvertently investing in these companies helping to fund the genocide in Sudan.

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

Sudan proxy war hits Wall Street roadblock

Financial Times
February 16th, 2014

Fidelity's Sudan problem

CNN Money
January 29th, 2007

Death by Dollars

New York Times
February 11th, 2007

Blood Money on Wall Street

Wall Street Journal
July 9th, 2009