Fidelity slashes PetroChina holdings

The head of the Fidelity Out of Sudan campaign applauded news that Fidelity Investments slashed its stake in PetroChina Co. American Depositary Receipts by 91% during the first quarter, but said those ADRs represent less than half of the biggest U.S. mutual fund company’s total holdings in PetroChina. PetroChina’s parent, CNPC, is Sudan’s largest partner in the oil industry there, according to the Fidelity Out of Sudan campaign’s website. Sudan’s oil industry is the primary revenue source for the Sudanese government, which allows it to fund genocide, said Eric Cohen, chairman of the Fidelity Out of Sudan. Fidelity said it held 420,916 ADRs of PetroChina of Beijing as of March 31, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday showed. That compared with about 4.5 million ADRs at the end of December, Reuters reported yesterday. Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio said the Boston-based company “does not discuss individual securities or our buying and selling.” Mr. Loporchio, however, said most of the shares traded on the Hong Kong exchange are held by London-based Fidelity International Ltd., a separate company from FMR Corp., the legal name for Fidelity Investments. He added that “individual fund managers make their own investment decisions based on their assessments of companies.” “The information provided in Fidelity’s filing only relates to its holding of ADR shares on the New York Stock Exchange,” Mr. Cohen said. “This portion of its holdings was just under half of its total holdings in PetroChina according to its Feb. 14 SEC filing.” Questions remain about Fidelity’s holdings of H shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, which represented the majority of its holdings in PetroChina, he said. “So there is uncertainty about what Fidelity is doing overall,” Mr. Cohen, who is based in Lexington, Mass., said. “That having been said, we applaud Fidelity for taking what seems to be a positive step toward divestment from companies that are helping to fund the genocide in Darfur.”