UK – The roughly £3.5bn (€5bn) London Pension Fund Authority – which manages London mayor Ken Livingstone’s pension scheme – has more than £11m invested in some of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, according to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

“I am alarmed to learn that GLA Greater London_Authority pensions may be invested in this way,” said Livingstone in a statement.

“I will be writing to members of the Pension Fund Authority to express this view and to ask them to clarify the situation."

According to CAAT’s shareholding figures, the LPFA has just over £11.5m invested in seven arms companies in 2005. This includes £549,000 invested in BAE, more than £2m in Boeing, over £1.8m in EADS, and over 4.8m in Northrop Grumman.

The LPFA did not respond to questions from IPE. Their investment managers include Goldman Sachs and Legal & General.

CAAT obtained the figures under the Freedom of Information legislation. Researchers requested details of shares held by 99 local authorities' pension funds in 15 of the world's largest weapons manufacturers in the UK, Europe and America – many of which sell weaponry to repressive regimes or regions in conflict.

Other firms include Rolls Royce, Cobham, EADS, Thales, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell and Halliburton.

According to CAAT, all but two of the local authorities for which information could be obtained held shares in one or more of the 15 arms companies amounting to £709m - more than double what local authorities spend on promoting local enterprise and new businesses across the UK.

The figures were released on CAAT’s website as part of its ‘Clean Investment’ campaign aimed at encouraging investors in arms exporting companies to disinvest for ethical reasons.

Meanwhile, the Berkshire pension scheme has more than £6m invested in UK arms companies, and more than £2m in US firms with just over £1.4m ploughed into Halliburton.

The Cheshire county council pension fund has close to £14m invested in all 15 arms firms, with just under £11.5m in UK firms, £316,070 in European firms and over £2m in the US.

Merseyside pension fund has over £14m invested, while the Hertfordshire pension fund has just over £17m.

According to a spokesperson for the Hertfordshire scheme, “As a local authority, we don't make decisions about where pension funds are invested, we rely on our managers to do this based on the balance of risk and return.

“We don't express a preference either for or against investing in defence industries, and cannot compare our investments with other authorities.”

A recent government report showed a “booming year” for the UK arms industry – pegged as the world’s second largest arms exporter, said CAAT.

It added: the UK sold arms to 80% of the world’s conflict zones in 2005, including to “11 of the 20 regimes on the government’s own list of the world’s most serious human rights abusers”.

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