Danish pension fund AkademikerPension has completed a fossil fuel divestment program to exit its portfolio of oil and gas stocks worth US$520 million with the sale of Italy’s ENI.

The fund, which oversees $20 billion in client assets, has undergone a divestment program spanning half a decade.

It has now divested from BP, Chevron, Equinor, Exxon Mobil, Petrobras, PetroChina, Shell, Repsol and TotalEnergies.

AkademikerPension, formerly named MP Pension, is a pension fund that admits academic degree holders, with more than 150,000 members privately or self-employed, or employed in the public sector, at academic institutions and upper secondary schools.

The pension fund began exclusion of major oil companies several years ago, but ENI remained as an eligible investment while the fund tried to influence management via active ownership.

“However, after a meeting with ENI this spring, it was clear that fossil fuel expansion and exploration remain a central part of the business strategy,” CIO Anders Schelde commented. “For AkademikerPension, this is the main reason for the exclusion, as there is no room for new fossil fuel projects in Paris-compatible scenarios, according to the International Energy Agency, and we believe that doing so exposes ENI to unacceptable long term risks.”

The fund hopes this sends a strong market signal to the board and top management to change course.

“After several years, where we together with other investors, have tried to get these companies to change their climate course, we have to realise that the top management in the oil and gas sector simply refuse to do so in [a] manner consistent with the goals of the Paris agreement. Therefore, we have now sold off and excluded ENI, the last remaining upstream fossil fuel company in our portfolio.

“Through a subsidiary, ENI will expand exploration for oil in vulnerable Arctic areas, which just confirms to us that ENI is a company that belongs on our exclusion list and not in our portfolio.”

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