PHA-Exchange> GATES FOUNDATION INVESTMENTS

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From: "Garance Upham" <g_upham at club-internet.fr>
LA TIMES story on Gates Foundation
(EXCERPTS)


Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation
By Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon, Times Staff Writers
January 7, 2007

 In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, a Times 
investigation has found, the
foundation reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that 
contravene its good works.

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles 
immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger
Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to 
protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423
million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and 
Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the serious 
pollution there , beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

At the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, 
making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006,
Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged 
to add about $31 billion in installments from his
personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates 
himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products 
of 70% of the world's nations.

Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its 
worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. In 2005, it granted nearly 
$1.4 billion. It awards grants mainly in support of global health 
initiatives, for efforts to improve public education in the United States, 
and for social welfare programs in the Pacific Northwest.
It invests the other 95% of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill 
Gates Investments, which handles Gates' personal fortune.
The investment managers have one goal: returns "that will allow for the 
continued funding of foundation programs and grant making." Bill and Melinda 
Gates require the managers to keep a highly
diversified portfolio, but make no specific directives.