State Attorney General Jerry Brown on Monday urged
the California Public Employees' Retirement System
and the State Teachers' Retirement System to "honor
the state law" and divest themselves from companies
doing business in Iran. Brown, a likely candidate for governor this year, said
the pension funds should "show some leadership and
stop supporting companies that do business with a tyrannical
regime." He said the pension funds’ annual reports did not include necessary information
about divestiture. An October 2007 state law requires CalPERS and STRS to "annually report
holdings in companies doing business in the defense,
nuclear, petroleum, and natural gas industries in Iran
and to divest from any company that fails to take substantial
action to cease or limit operations in Iran," Brown’s office said. The attorney general said both pension funds filed
annual reports at the end of last year, but that those
documents did not say whether investments in companies
with ties to Iran have been reduced and did not give
a timeline of divestiture. "What it boils down to is that he is looking for some
additional information that is not in the report, and
we’d be happy to consider it (his request)," said CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco. CalPERS has more than 1.6 million members and more than $200 billion in assets. CalSTRS is the largest teachers'
retirement fund in the country with 833,000 members and more than $130 billion in assets.
