Stanford Getting Rid of $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 7, 2014 @09:32AM from the unconflicting-itself-of-interests dept.

mdsolar sends this report from the NY Times: "Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments. The university said it acted in accordance with internal guidelines that allow its trustees to consider whether 'corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury' when choosing investments. Coal's status as a major source of carbon pollution linked to climate change persuaded the trustees to remove companies 'whose principal business is coal' from their investment portfolio, the university said."

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Misleading headline by Daffy+Duck · 2014-05-07 09:55 · Score: 5, Informative

Stanford University has an $18 billion endowment, but only a fraction of that is invested in coal mining companies. They're not just dumping $18 billion worth of stock.
Summary is WRONG by ShanghaiBill · 2014-05-07 10:09 · Score: 5, Informative

they are reducing the value of future offerings by becoming one less bidder for those shares.
Not by much, because the summary is WRONG. $18B is the value of their entire endowment. The fraction of that specifically invested in coal is a tiny fraction of that. If they are smart, they already divested, before making the announcement.