1st Jul 2015 11:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - The Church of England has sold its GBP1.6 million stake in SOCO International PLC over allegations of bribery, corruption and human rights abuses and what it said was the company?s failure to unequivocally rule out drilling for oil in Africa?s oldest national park, reported The Guardian on Wednesday.
Environmentalists have been targeting SOCO for the past two years for its attempt to drill in Virunga in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is a world heritage site and home to around half the world?s mountain gorillas.
The church was sufficiently alarmed by the allegations that it asked the company to conduct an independent public inquiry into them, but at its recent AGM SOCO refused to publish the scope or outcome of the inquiry, the Guardian said.
That prompted the Church Commissioners, which manage the Church of England's GBP6.7 billion investment fund, to divest their entire GBP1.6 million holding from SOCO in what they called a ?last resort?. The stake was sold on Friday.
The Church has previously divested from News Corp and Vedanta Resources based on ethical grounds such as the 2010 phone hacking scandal and human rights concerns in India.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/01/church-of-england-divests-soco-oil-virunga-operations-ethical
SOCO shares were down 1.9% to 172.75 pence per share on Wednesday afternoon.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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