A Freedom of Information request submitted by Education Officer Grace Street on behalf of USyd Education Action Group has seen the release of documents by the University of Sydney regarding their ties with Israeli companies and broader financial investments.
The request was initially made on May 13 following which the University stated it would release the requested documents on June 11. The information was officially released last Thursday (July 18).
The Freedom of Information application requested access to all investments “currently held in the University of Sydney’s Endowment Funds” and all reports made by Investment and Capital Management to the University’s Finance Committee and Investment Subcommittee from 2021 – 2023.
Finally, the application requested a list of all Israeli companies the University maintains ties with. Ties were defined as “providing services to, trading with, or holding investments in”.
This included the 97 companies listed by the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner as conducting business in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Items 1 – 14 of the released documents consist of a table labelling each of the University’s equity portfolio investments from the period of March 2021 through to March 2024, as well as their respective weight and asset class. Among the presently held investments are fossil fuel industry giants Shell and BHP, gambling corporation Lottery Corp, and BDS listed companies such as Amazon and Disney.
Items 15 – 27 consist of the University’s Chief Invesment Officer (CIO) reports to the Finance Committee Investment Subcommittee (FC IS) made from February 2021 to March 2024. These reports include asset allocation, returns and losses, and sector exposure.
Despite giving a wide scope of reports, the lion’s share of this information is redacted, referring to considerations against disclosure set out in Section 14 of the Government Information (Public Access) Act. These considerations broadly concern an agency being disadvantaged or prejudiced in its business, commercial, professional or financial interests by the release of information.
Items 28 – 30 outline the University’s ties with Israeli companies. Items 28 and 29 list active suppliers located in Israel, as well as a list of transactions occurring over the period 2023 – 2024.
In the final item of the documents, the CIO advises that while the University’s holdings “have no companies listed on the Israeli stock exchange”, $2.25m of exposure to Israeli companies in the private equity and venture capital funds has been identified.
The CIO claims that the University is unable to sell these stakes.
Regarding the applications specification of the 97 companies listed by the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner as conducting business in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the CIO states that the University has no exposure to any companies listed.
Known ties to Israeli universities such as Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem were also detailed. This included over $20,000 paid to the latter for consulting on a business course.
This comes almost two months after a similar freedom of information request by Students Against War ANU saw the release of information regarding the Australian National University’s ties with weapons manufacturers implicated in genocide, having invested over one million dollars in contracts with companies such as Thales SA, Dassault Systemes, IBM and Lockheed Martin. Following the release of this information, along with mounting pressure from student protests, the University launched a review into it’s investment portfolio.
In response to the release, USyd Education Officer Grace Street told Honi Soit that, “Although we now know only a few of the exact investments that are supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestine, this partial disclosure is one step forward in our ongoing campaign to cut ties with Israel. There are likely much more insidious things hidden away in their private equity and venture capital funds, which they disclosed has $2.25m of exposure to Israeli companies but that they claim to be ‘unable to sell’.”
GIPAs, also referred to as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, have become an integral part of student activism and student journalism in combating the increasingly corporatised and bureaucratic university of the 21st century. As previously covered by Honi Soit, a 2019 inquest by Fossil Free USYD saw the release of significant information regarding the University’s financial ties with the fossil fuel industry.
A University spokesperson did not comment on the specific findings of the GIPA request but told Honi that “we have committed to convening a working group to provide feedback on our investment policies to ensure they reflect our commitment to human rights, including consideration of the position of defence- and security-related industries in our Investment Policy and our Integrated ESG Framework.”
“This work will commence in Semester 2 as planned, and we’ll communicate with our community as it progresses,” the spokesperson said.
These investments are likely to take centre stage in the upcoming Student General Meeting, Wednesday 7 August, where students are expected to vote on complete divestment from Israel.
