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California Pension Fund's Social, Corporate Activism Draws Attention.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, April, 2003

By Chris Gaither, The Boston Globe Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Apr. 20--SACRAMENTO, Calif.--When the AIDS Healthcare Foundation wanted drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC to lower the $438 a person it charges in developing countries for a year's worth of AZT, it turned to an unlikely ally: America's largest pension fund.

At a public hearing in a dim auditorium a year ago, Ged Kenslea, the foundation's communications director, pleaded with trustees of the California Public Employees' Retirement System to exert their influence on Glaxo. If that didn't work, Kenslea said, then the fund should dump its $1 billion of Glaxo stock.

Given that pension funds try to make money by investing in growing companies that don't give away their...

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