Norway: Siltanews – News Desk
Norway’s largest private pension fund has excluded two defense companies from its portfolio, citing their ties to the Israeli military and the war in Gaza.
KLP Pension, which oversees about $114 billion, said in a statement on Monday that it won’t invest in Oshkosh Corp. or ThyssenKrupp AG because they sell weapons to the Israeli military.
The fund said the decision followed a report from United Nations last June that identified companies supplying the Israel Defense Forces with weapons that ended up being deployed in Gaza. After talks with the companies, KLP said it concluded they were “contravening” the fund’s investment guidelines.
“We have therefore decided to exclude them from our investment universe,” Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, said in the statement. Before June 16, KLP held shares worth about 19 million kroner in Oshkosh and roughly 10 million kroner in ThyssenKrupp.
Spokespeople for Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp didn’t respond to a request for comment sent outside regular office hours.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and sparking a war in Gaza that has dragged on for almost 20 months. More than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, while large parts of the territory have been reduced to rubble.