NY Pension Fund Withdraws $111 Million Investment from Ben & Jerry’s Parent Company over Israel Boycott

The New York state pension fund is withdrawing $111 million in investments from the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, claiming that the ice cream maker’s recent boycott of Israeli settlements violates the state’s anti- Boycott, Divestment and Sanction policy.

The New York Common Retirement Fund, with $263 billion in assets under management, explicitly rejects investment in firms that engage in BDS, which is designed to penalize the state of Israel.

In July, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would discontinue sales in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” but would continue doing business “through a different arrangement” in Israel, where ice cream had been manufactured and distributed for years prior.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the manager of the fund, determined that such a move constituted BDS activity and warranted pulling the fund’s equity investments from parent company Unilever.

“After a thorough review, the New York State Common Retirement Fund will divest its equity holdings in Unilever PLC. Our review of the activities of the company, and its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s, found they engaged in BDS activities under our pension fund’s policy,” DiNapoli told the New York Post.

“We will be divesting those investments. Ben & Jerry’s engaged in BDS activities,” a spokesman for DiNapoli conveyed to the Post.

After Ben & Jerry’s cut partial market ties with Israel, DiNapoli’s director of corporate governance, Liz Gordon, cautioned Unilever CEO Alan Jope that its daughter company was engaging in BDS action against Israel, adding that DiNapoli was “troubled and concerned” by it.

“The Fund views BDS activities as a potential threat to Israel, its economy, and, as a result, the Fund’s relevant investments,” she said in a letter obtained by the Post. “Further, a number of U.S. states have acted or are considering actions to penalize companies that engage in such behavior.”

On August 4, Jope clarified that the decision doesn’t represent a severing of its business relationship with Israel but only a small cancellation of operations in territories it believes the country to be illegally occupying.

“Unilever has a strong and longstanding commitment to our business in Israel. We employ nearly 2,000 people in the country across our four factories and head office, and we have invested approximately $250 million in the Israeli market over the last decade,” Jope said in a letter to Gorzon acquired by the Post.

“On this decision, it was no different. Ben & Jerry’s has also made it clear that although the brand will not be present in the West Bank from 2023, it will remain in Israel through a different business arrangement,” Jope added.

New York is one of many states to end its investments in Unilever after Ben & Jerry’s boycott, in addition to Florida, New Jersey, Arizona and Texas.