From the article:
Stanford’s
associate vice president for communications, Lisa Lapin, said the
decision covers about 100 companies worldwide that derive the majority
of their revenue from coal extraction. Not all of those companies are in
the university’s investment portfolio, whose structure is private, she
said. Over all, the university’s coal holdings are a small fraction of
its endowment.
“But a small percentage is still a substantial amount of money,” she added.
The
trustees’ decision carries more symbolic than financial weight, but it
is a major victory for a rapidly growing student-led divestment movement
that is now active at roughly 300 universities.
There may be more than a moral or ethical aspect to this. My former coworker and pretty good reporter Taylor Kuykendall at SNL Financial has tweeted lately that the market capitalization (total value of all stock in a company; share price times number of shares) of major coal companies has dropped drastically in the past few years.
It's easy to stand with God when Mammon approves.
