Getty City pension fund votes to divest from gun retailers

The board of the New York City Employees Retirement System, the city's largest pension fund, voted on Thursday to divest the $54.5 billion fund's holdings in companies that sell firearms, a spokesman for City Comptroller Scott Stringer said.

The vote to divest the fund's holdings came in an executive session of the NYCERS board members, which meant that information about which companies the fund had voted to divest from, and how much money the divestment represents, was not immediately clear.


Sources familiar with Thursday's vote said the board members were acting on a proposal introduced last year in the wake of the mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, by the New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, who called on all five of the New York City pension funds to divest their holdings from any companies that sell firearms, including WalMart, Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp, Cabela’s, and Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. At the time James proposed the divestment, New York City’s five pension funds owned more than five million shares in Walmart, and NYCERS, the pension system's largest fund, held 1.4 million Walmart shares.

James is a trustee on the NYCERS board, and formally introduced the divestment proposal last year. She is not a trustee on the other four pension fund boards, and could not formally introduce the divestment proposal to those funds' boards.

The divestment represents the latest move by the city's pension funds to dissociate the city's $160 billion worth of assets, one of the largest public pension systems in the country, from gun retailers, and firearm and ammunitions manufacturers in response to a wave of mass shootings.

After the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in December of 2012, two of the city's largest pension funds, NYCERS and the Teachers Employees Retirement System, voted to divest their holdings in gun manufacturing companies.

Last year, after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, Mayor Bill de Blasio called on the other three of the city's five pension funds to further divest their holdings in companies that manufacture weapons and ammunition. Both the Police Pension Fund and the Board of Education Retirement System's trustees have approved plans to study the possibility of divesting their holdings in gunmakers, but the Fire Department pension system voted down the idea. De Blasio has urged the board to reconsider.

In a letter last year calling for the divestment, James said that divesting from WalMart was a last resort.

"In addition to the unacceptable risk posed by their actions or inactions, there also comes a time when we say enough, that we do not want to be co-owners of a company that has little regard for its shareholders and their legitimate issues," she wrote. "There are other investments to be made. I ask that you join with me in supporting this initiative and rid ourselves of securities that place our funds at risk. Now is the time. The blood of the past and future victims of crimes committed with guns bought at Wal-Mart should never be on our hands. If they will not cease sales, we should not be part of it. The risk is too great and the price is too high."

Stringer praised the divestment decision in a statement sent Thursday afternoon.

"This vote sends a strong signal across the country that government can take tangible steps to help reduce the number of guns on our streets and make progress toward ending the epidemic of gun violence" Stringer said in a statement.

James praised the vote in a statement, saying it signals "that we will no longer do business with companies that fund the deaths of our family members and friends."

