Camden Council staff fear for pension money ploughed into SKY
£300,000 is tied up in Murdoch takeover bid firm
CAMDEN Council pension money has been invested in British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), the company at the centre of Rupert Murdoch’s failed takeover bid.
And now, in the wake of the phone hacking crisis engulfing Mr Murdoch’s media empire and the shock closure of the News of the World, finance chiefs at the Town Hall are anxiously checking their arrangements to see if they risk losing money belonging to council staff.
Mr Murdoch’s News International holds a 39 per cent stake in BSkyB but was gearing up for a full takeover until its bid came to a dramatic halt yesterday (Wednesday).
MPs from all political parties successfully urged the company to withdraw its takeover bid after public revulsion over revelations that the News of the World – part of the News International stable – had hacked into the mobile phones of teenage murder victim Milly Dowler and relatives of July 7 London bombing victims.
The fast-moving developments have led to volatile movements on the Stock Exchange for both BSkyB and News International.
The confusing picture, with analysts unsure whether is the right time to offload or actually a good time to buy stocks in BSkyB, has a knock-on effect for staff paying into Camden’s pension fund or already collecting from it.
It emerged on Friday that Camden has at least £300,000 tied up in BSkyB, even though the share price has been inching downwards for several weeks due to uncertainty over Mr Murdoch’s chances of a successful takeover.
That figure is not huge in relation to the entire fund but the council is obliged to score the best return on all its investments connected to the fund.
Some councillors, privately at least, are already uncomfortable that staff contributions ever reached a company with connections to Mr Murdoch – the man who brought Page 3 girls to British newspapers has divided opinion for decades and historically in many quarters of Labour-run local authorities provoked growls of opposition.
But local authority rules prevent Camden from removing deposits on what might be considered ethical terms – in the same way that advertisers were able to withhold their money from Mr Murdoch’s News of the World.
Councillors and officers, however, have spent the past few days investigating whether Camden has the opportunity to withdraw due to the simple reason that the jumpy share prices makes holding on to an investment too much of a gamble.
Camden’s finance chief Councillor Theo Blackwell, who ordered the review, said: “We have a legal duty to our current and future pensioners to invest in stable stocks.
“We need a new assessment of the medium-term strength of our holdings given the reaction of the markets so far and the continuing spotlight on the News Corp board and the actions of the News of the World.”
George Binette, Unison branch secretary in Camden, said: “Murdoch has always been an enemy of the trade unions and I would rather the money wasn’t in a company he part owned, but the issue for us is that historically people who pay into the scheme have no say in where it is invested.
“We have observer status on the panel but there is an absence of control over the decisions made. We have opposed investments in arms manufacturers and tobacco firms in the past, but we have not had the control to stop the investments.”
• The National Union of Journalists is holding a meeting tonight (Thursday) at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, Holborn, to discuss the future of journalism in the wake of the closure of the News of the World and the phone-hacking debate. Speakers include Professor Brian Cathcart, Labour MP Tom Watson and NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet.
Published: 14th July, 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY