In the City
Bond villains
THE collective investment vehicle for the pension schemes of London’s boroughs has quietly unloaded more than £6.75m of Israeli government bonds, as well as shares in Israeli banks worth more than £800,000. The bonds and shares were sold by the London Collective Investment Vehicle (LCIV), one of eight local government pension scheme asset-pooling companies. LCIV manages £34bn of pooled assets for the 32 London boroughs and the City of London.
The bond sales were made last October, 12 months after the war in Gaza began following the Hamas attacks inside Israel. The sales emerged from research by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), shared with Private Eye, into LCIV investments linked to Israel and the occupied territories.