The Los Angeles Times article printed in The Herald on Sunday, the one dealing with the Gates Foundation’s determination “to maintain its investment strategy” – painted a surprising picture of the foundation. The article appeared after a prior Times piece – which also appeared in The Herald – pointed out that several firms in which the foundation invests do “contribute to human suffering in health, housing and social welfare.”
These actions are said to be in direct contradiction to the foundation’s stated goals. After some foundation waffling, its CEO took the narrow-minded and unfortunate path of saying that their investments have no effect on the operations of the firms in which they invest – and to think otherwise is naive.
While after-market investments do not directly benefit the issuers of securities, significant investments of foundation funds do maintain the security price and bolster the image of the firm. Also, any dividends and capital gains enjoyed by the foundation can easily be seen as resulting from the operations they decry. The association is, at least, unfortunate for the foundation’s image.
I can’t imagine that an investor with the assets and asserted pure motives of the Gates Foundation can not, if you’ll excuse me, practice what they preach.
Quentin Mitchell
Stanwood
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