War in Gaza: The largest state funds in the world are cutting Israel shops

The Norwegian state fund wants to sell further Israeli company shares due to the situation in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. This was announced by the boss of the world’s largest state fund, Nicolai Tangen with two trillion dollars. “We assume that we will separate from other companies,” said Tangen at a press conference. The fund had announced on Monday to terminate contracts with external asset managers for some of its Israeli facilities. In the past few days, he has already separated from shares to eleven of the 61 Israeli companies in which he was last involved.

The review was triggered by media reports on participation in the Israeli engine manufacturer Bet Shemesh Engines LTD. The company provides services for the Israeli forces, including the maintenance of fighter planes. The participation in the company has now been sold, the fund said.

As an investor in November 2023, shortly after the Gaza War had been broken, the state fund had entered Bet Shemesh Engines through an external asset manager. Since then there have been quarterly meetings with corporate management, in which the war in the Gaza Strip was not an issue, said Tangen. The share was initially classified as a “medium risk” in relation to ethical concerns and only rated as a “high risk” in May. The risk assessment would have had to change earlier, admitted tangling. “We should have recovered control over the Israeli investments faster.”

In the future, the fund’s investments in Israel are to be limited to companies that are included in the stock-benchmark index. Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg said that the state fund should not invest in companies that participated in the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza War. The former NATO Secretary General excluded a general retreat from all Israeli companies.