"It's the right thing to do," bank spokesperson says
AMP, Kiwi Wealth, and ASB have joined the ranks of KiwiSaver schemes which have committed to selling their investments in Russia.
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They follow Westpac, ANZ, and BNZ, which have all declared they will no longer have their savers’ money invested in companies linked to Russia, or bonds issued by the Russian government.
“We’re divesting Russian investments from our AMP-named funds,” Ben Mabon, spokesman for AMP, told Stuff. “We issued sell instructions before markets opened in Europe and the US this week.”
Mabon said AMP had very few investments in Russia, but that the company thinks “it’s the right thing to do.”
While AMP controls the investments in its own KiwiSaver funds, Mabon said its KiwiSaver scheme allows savers to invest in funds managed by other fund managers, and that those managers would decide on their own whether to sell any Russian investments they own.
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An ASB spokeswoman said the bank committed to “removing all Russian stocks and bonds from our investment funds” this week and that it has “begun the process of divesting,” Stuff reported.
“Kiwi Wealth is currently divesting the small amount of Russian state-owned stocks it holds, amounting to less than 0.004% of our total assets under management,” the Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver scheme said. “We do not hold any Russian bonds. We are currently assessing whether further action should be taken regarding the stock holdings.”
Mercer, a large KiwiSaver manager, which also runs the New Zealand Defence Force KiwiSaver KiwiSaver scheme, has not yet confirmed whether it will divest any Russian investments it owns.
KiwiSaver managers started coming under pressure to divest from their Russian investment, as the EU, UK, and US imposed sanctions against Russia and its banks, and as media reports revealed the extent of KiwiSaver and government funds’ exposure to investments in Russia, Stuff said.
