Word: portfolios
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Citicorp and Manufacturer's Hanover stock in 1976 and recently sold it, seems to have been unaware of the importance on campus of the divestiture issue. While Shields and the four other independent firms helping to manage Harvard's investments only control about 10 per cent of the portfolio, it is irresponsible for Harvard to let anyone make University investment decisions without considering the social implications of those decisions...
...ACSR's history tells us anything it is that the decision, if and when it finally occurs, will be too little. It is already too late. Many campus groups, most notably the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee, have called on the University to sponsor shareholder resolutions for companies in the portfolio that operate in South Africa to withdraw from that country. The deadlines for this year for sponsoring such resolutions in many companies have already passed or will soon pass--usually a shareholder must initiate a resolution 90 days before the annual company meeting in April...
...ACSR is only an advisory board, recommending policy to the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, which tells Harvard Management Company, an investment firm set up in 1974 to control 90 per cent of the portfolio, what to do about Harvard's investments. The Corporation accepts about 90 per cent of the ACSR's recommendations, but on sensitive issues the Corporation has a nasty habit of abstaining on shareholder resolutions if the vote of the ACSR on what policy to recommend isn't lopsided--no clear mandate, you see. But even when the Corporation does accept the ACSR's advice...
MacKay Shields Financial Corporation, the investment firm that controls a segment of Harvard's portfolio including the Citicorp and Manufacturer's Hanover stock in question, told the University last week it was selling those particular stocks as part of a $1.6 million changeover to investments with greater and faster growth potential. Walter M. Cabot '55, deputy treasurer of the University, relayed that information to the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), but said at the same time that the sales stemmed from purely financial, and not political, motivations, though the sale has obvious political repercussions...
Cabot's claim is plausible. The stocks, purchased last year, have appreciably declined in value, as have many bank stocks, and a periodic housecleaning of a large portfolio is to be expected. The stocks may have depreciated at least partially because of mounting political pressure. It is difficult to ignore the political significance of the sale; still, taking the University at its word, the decision should have had political, as well as financial consideration...