BOSTON: Some of the biggest public pensions funds in the United States have invested in one of the world's largest purveyors of video surveillance systems that the U.S. government claims are used in wide-scale repression of the Muslim population of western China.
The New York State Teachers Retirement System also owned Hikvision, reporting 81,802 shares at the end of June, up from 26,402 shares at the end of 2018, fund disclosures show.“Our holdings are primarily held according to their weights in passive portfolios matching the MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. index, our policy benchmark. We are monitoring the situation,” said a spokesman for the teachers' fund. The ex-U.S. All Country World Index includes stocks from 22 developed and emerging markets.
Another major fund investing in Hikvision shares is the Florida Retirement System , with 1.8 million shares at the end of June. Robinson said that many Americans are unwittingly owning shares in such companies because they are in index funds."They are picked up by the index providers in sizable numbers and sluiced into U.S. investor portfolios with seemingly very little, if any, due diligence or disclosure in the categories of national security and human rights."
Just 9per cent of global emerging markets funds now own Hikvision, down from 20per cent in 2018, according to Copley Fund Research. One fund to pull out is the US$2.7 billion Artisan Developing World Fund, which had a US$66 million position in Hikvision at the end of March but reported holding no shares three months later, fund disclosures show. Artisan did not respond to a request for comment.
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