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Boston Common Supports Massachusetts Divestment Letter Related to Sudan

Boston, MA March 29, 2007

Senator Benjamin B. Downing, Chair

Senator Steven A. Tolman, Vice-Chair

Representative Jay R. Kaufman, Chair

Representative Linda Dorcena Forry, Vice-Chair

Joint Committee on Public Service

Room 473B

State House

Boston, MA 02133

Re: S. 1474

Dear Senators Downing, Senator Tolman, Representative Kaufman, and Representative

Forry,

The undersigned investment firms and financial managers are writing today to express

our strong support for S. 1474, a bill to divest certain public funds from companies conducting business in Sudan.

S. 1474 would implement the so-called “targeted divestment” strategy, which singles out for scrutiny only a minority (~24) of the 400+ companies doing business in Sudan. These companies are in strategically significant sectors (oil, minerals, power) to the Sudanese government, which is responsible for carrying out the last four years’ genocidal policies in the Darfur region that have killed at least 400,000 and displaced more than 2.5 million. The bill does not target companies that provide significant humanitarian benefits to the marginalized populace. Furthermore, Massachusetts could opt out of divesting from a particular company if it can demonstrate that divestment was having a negative impact on investment returns. Altogether, this is a tightly conceived piece of legislation that, in our opinion, does not place undue additional risk upon Massachusetts’ long term investment performance.

The international community’s diplomatic efforts and lack of will to dispatch peacekeeping troops combine to offer no incentive to the Government of Sudan to cease its slaughter of the inhabitants of Darfur. This ongoing crisis challenges all of us who possess any leverage over the Government of Sudan to use it without further delay. The socially responsible investment community of which we are part typically endorses divestment only as a tool of last resort, preferring to engage with companies to encourage constructive behavior. In this case, however, which the U.N. has declared “the worst humanitarian disaster in the world today,” the need to place economic pressure on the Government of Sudan is indisputable and urgent. The Sudanese government’s swift and and energetic attacks on the international divestment campaign has demonstrated the potential for this strategy to have impact.

Massachusetts should join the increasing number of state and city pension funds, universities (including Harvard and a growing number of other Massachusetts higher education institutions), socially concerned mutual funds and investment firms that are taking action to ensure that they will neither prop up nor benefit from business that empowers the Government of Sudan so long as the genocide continues. By enacting S. 1474, the Commonwealth can help to end the tragic slaughter in Darfur, and set an example for other public and private fiduciaries, while assuming little to no additional portfolio risk.

Thank you for your attention on this important issue.

Shelley Alpern

Trillium Asset Management

William B. Perkins

Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge

Tim Smith

Walden Asset Management

Lauren Compere

Boston Common Asset Management

cc:          Senator Therese Murray, Senate President

              Representative Salvatore F. DiMasi, Speaker of the House

              Members of the Joint Committee on Public Service

              Michael Travaglini, Executive Director, Massachusetts PRIM

              The Honorable Tim Cahill, Massachusetts Treasurer and Receiver General

For more information please contact Lauren Compere at lcompere(at)bostoncommonasset.com, 617-720-5557