BT’s £59 Million Investment in Arms
Disarm DSEi | 13.09.2009 22:55 | Anti-militarism
After Tuesday’s protest against investors in the arms trade, Felix Allen in the Evening Standard reported that:
"A witness at the BT building said: “They came running in and jumped over the security barriers, smashing glasses and telephones.
“Some of them went up to two floors above, having a look round and writing graffiti.
“It could have been really frightening but when they started shouting about BT being involved in the arms trade I knew that they didn’t know what they were going on about. Then they must have got bored and left.”
The Standard leaves it at that, but we thought you might be interested to know more about BT’s investments in the arms trade.
"A witness at the BT building said: “They came running in and jumped over the security barriers, smashing glasses and telephones.
“Some of them went up to two floors above, having a look round and writing graffiti.
“It could have been really frightening but when they started shouting about BT being involved in the arms trade I knew that they didn’t know what they were going on about. Then they must have got bored and left.”
The Standard leaves it at that, but we thought you might be interested to know more about BT’s investments in the arms trade.
From Banking on Bloodshed
The map of the city we published lists BT as having shares worth £59 million pounds in the international arms trade. That figure comes Banking on Bloodshed, a report published last year by War on Want. The details appear in a table on page 22.
The data in that table come from AMADEUS and ORBIS, databases of financial and corporate information.
We see that in June 2008 BT held £59,083,127 of shares in arms companies, equivalent to around £590 for each of the 100,000 people that work for BT. Their investments include £27.8 million in BAE systems, one of the worlds biggest weapons makers and supplier to Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe, among others.
£59 million of capital will fund facilities to build machines that will maim and kill an awful lot of people, and that’s not something anyone should tolerate.
The data in that table come from AMADEUS and ORBIS, databases of financial and corporate information.
We see that in June 2008 BT held £59,083,127 of shares in arms companies, equivalent to around £590 for each of the 100,000 people that work for BT. Their investments include £27.8 million in BAE systems, one of the worlds biggest weapons makers and supplier to Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe, among others.
£59 million of capital will fund facilities to build machines that will maim and kill an awful lot of people, and that’s not something anyone should tolerate.
Disarm DSEi
Homepage:
http://www.dsei.org/bt-investment#more-239
