Six Danish pension funds are to leave the organisation behind the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, citing ongoing governance failings.

ATP, Industriens Pension, PensionDanmark, PFA Pension, PKA, and Sampension issued a joint statement saying they will continue to follow the principles, but remain outside the organisation until it “lives up to basic requirements for good corporate governance”.

“Despite numerous attempts to improve the conditions within PRI, we must, unfortunately, acknowledge that these attempts have not been successful,” the investors said.

“Therefore, we have chosen to leave the PRI organisation until the organisation re-establishes the fundamental principles of governance that existed before the organisation in 2010-11 on its own initiative radically changed the organisation’s constitution without the involvement or consent of its members at the time.”

From next year the investors will not be able to report to the PRI organisation on implementation of the principles. However, they will continue to report on how they work with responsible investment – including their compliance with the six UNPRI principles.

“Should the PRI organisation at a later stage endeavour to substantiate that the governance of the organisation has improved to a satisfactory level, we will as individual investors give serious thought to re-entering the organisation.”

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