Canadian miner Barrick Gold Corp

OSLO - Norway's US$300-billion-plus sovereign wealth fund has excluded Canadian miner Barrick Gold Corp. and U. S. weapons producer Textron Inc. from its investment portfolio for ethical reasons.

The finance ministry said yesterday that Textron was ejected from the fund, one of the world's biggest investors, because it produced cluster munitions and Barrick Gold due to environmental problems, particularly at a mine in Papua New Guinea.

"We cannot participate in the funding of this type of production," Kristin Halvorsen, the Finance Minister, said in a statement.

She said Barrick Gold's exclusion was "based on the assessment that investing in the company entails an unacceptable risk of the fund contributing to serious environmental damage."

The Government Pension Fund -- Global, which held 1.25-billion Norwegian kroner ($226.4-million) worth of Barrick Gold stock at the end of July, 2008, and 249-million kroner worth of Textron stock at the end of October, has divested its holdings in both companies, the ministry said.

So far, Norway has shut 27 companies out of the fund for ethical reasons, including nine producers of cluster munitions, but also landmine and nuclear-arms manufacturers and companies that its ethics council has blamed for damaging the environment or abusing human rights or worker rights.

In December, 2008, Norway hosted a conference that agreed to a new international ban on cluster munitions, a type of weapon blamed for tens of thousands of civilian casualties around the world in conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

"The company (Textron) produces cluster weapons, which are banned pursuant to the Convention on Cluster Munitions," Ms. Halvorsen said in the statement.

Textron says its munition meets some but not all of the criteria for acceptable cluster bombs under the Oslo treaty.

"They are free to do those things, and it is important that they follow the local rules and regulations they need to follow."

Textron shares fell US6¢ to close at US$9.03 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The ethics council based its recommendation to exclude Barrick, the world's largest gold miner, on an investigation of its activities at the Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea, the finance ministry said.

Barrick spokesman Vince Borg said, "We continue to operate in full compliance with legal and other requirements."

"Whether it is the government of New Zealand or Norway, they have a right to decide which investments to make and which ones to hold, or sell -- that is their business."

Barrick Gold shares slipped $1 to close at $46.14 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

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