Suffolk County Council's pension shares plummet over Ukraine

The Suffolk Pension Fund's members include county council staff

A council's £4m pension fund investment has been written down to nil due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Suffolk County Council said the value of holdings in Russian companies had plummeted to almost zero as sanctions hit the Russian financial markets.

It said while it represented a 0.1% loss, "it should be seen in the context of the overall strong performance of the Suffolk pension fund".

The matter is to be discussed by the pension fund committee on 31 March.

The Suffolk Pension Fund is part of the national Local Government Pension Scheme.

Its members include people who work for Suffolk County Council, the county's district councils and parish councils and a number of other organisations including colleges.

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Karen Soons, Conservative chairwoman of the Suffolk Pension Fund committee, said it had a "wide range of global investments which together have generated a 12.6% return in 2021".

"The Russian stocks are held in an emerging markets index fund and represent 0.1% of the fund as at 31 December 2021," she said.

"As a direct result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, trading on the Russian stock exchange has been suspended and Russian stocks will be removed from the index.

"The Russian holdings were valued in December 2021 at £4m and are now regarded as nil.

"Whilst this does represent a 0.1% loss, it should be seen in the context of the overall strong performance of the Suffolk pension fund."

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It is understood the shares included £900,000 in Russian energy giant Gazprom, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council previously confirmed it would cut ties with the Russian-owned energy supplier.

Green, Liberal Democrat and independent group county councillor Robert Lindsay, who is also on the pension fund committee, had lobbied for more stocks to be divested from fossil fuel companies.

"If we had properly excluded fossil fuel stocks as I've been asking for six years, we would not be faced with nearly such a big write down," he said.

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