Dutch pension fund divests from US company Caterpillar over Gaza concerns

Netherlands’ largest pension fund ABP said on Wednesday it will divest from U.S. heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar over concerns that the company’s equipment is being used by the Israeli occupation army in the Gaza Strip.

The fund held a stake in Caterpillar worth about €387 million (around $454 million) as of the end of March, according to fund sources.

ABP, which serves roughly three million public-sector and education workers in the Netherlands, said its investment approach “must deliver good returns while adhering to social responsibility.”

In a press statement the fund added: “When companies do not meet our standards, we enter into a dialogue with them. If that does not lead to the desired results, we cease investing in them.”

Israeli occupation forces, with unequivocal U.S. support, are waging what the article describes as a genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip, which according to an open tally through Tuesday has left 66,097 dead, 168,536 wounded, more than 9,000 missing, and a famine that has claimed hundreds of lives, while over two million Palestinians live in forced displacement amid widespread destruction.

On Sept. 24, Danish pension fund AkademikerPension announced it had excluded Israeli assets, including companies under government control, from its investment portfolio in protest at the war in Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.

The fund, valued at 157 billion Danish kroner ($24.77 billion) and which manages pensions for teachers and university professors, said “the conflict does not align with international humanitarian principles.”