Fidelity Target-Date Shareholders Vote Down Sudan Divestment

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By Neil Anderson

Investors Against Genocide just faced another setback in its campaign to push giant mutual fund firms to divest their mutual funds from companies that invest in Sudan. Reuters' Ross Kerber reports that shareholders of the Fidelity Freedom 2010 and Freedom 2020 funds voted against the proposals on Friday (with 21.9 percent and 23.4 percent of votes in the two funds, respectively, supporting the divestment proposals.

Similar proposals at other Fidelity and Vanguard funds met with similar fates earlier this summer.

According to Reuters, IAG chairman Eric Cohen said that the votes still show "that large numbers of their [Fidelity's] customers want this."