"The Fellowship has profiteered from the alcohol industry......"

According to GSO: 

“The transfers did not happen in quite the way you suggest, Morgan Stanley decided to close its charity arm and sold it off to Credit Suisse, we were transferred in April 2014, some of the staff were transferred along with it and we had assumed that the existing investment policy would also be carried forward. At that time and until October 2014 that policy was that Investments should not include companies where alcohol is  the main commodity. 

We were very disappointed to discover that Investments had been made in Diageo plc and a meeting was held in December with a representative from Credit Suisse concerning our portfolio.

Since then the Executive met and has made a decision concerning our Investments which I am not able to divulge until it is taken to the GSB meeting at the end of this month. However I will let you know the outcome as soon as I can.”

A request for clarification of the above: 

“So, just to be clear :

· In April 2014 Credit Suisse were appointed to replace Morgan Stanley as the Fellowship’s investment managers and were given a mandate that ‘No Investments are held / managed in Districts that fall under the “Tax Avoidance” or “Politically Unstable” umbrellas.’

· Despite the acknowledged importance of such matters in light of Tradition 10, the implementation of this mandate was not checked by us, them or anyone else before the balance sheet date of 30 September 2014.

· You advised me on 9 December that a statement will appear in the audited accounts regarding the new Managers’ investment mandate and, when asked for clarification, affirmed that none of the investments disclosed in the accounts for the year to 30 September 2014 will trace back to Luxembourg.

· On 11 December accounts are filed at Companies House detailing our holding of Luxembourg-domiciled funds and a publicly traceable indirect investment in the shares of Diageo plc, the world’s largest distiller of alcoholic spirits.

· We continue to hold these investments, and have no definite timescale as to when they will be sold.

Is that correct?”

And so on and so forth. We won't bore you with the rest. We think you get the general idea!!

Now with regard to the current position see here 

You will observe from this the name of the previous fund managers (so-called “Brand Y”) has been omitted for fear of litigation. We would have thought if there was any litigation to take place it should be us versus them (incidentally “Brand Y” is Morgan Stanley just in case you didn't remember). But, of course, we don't get involved in such mucky issues and consequently companies such as these (blood sucking, amoral parasites that they are) think they can walk all over us.

We'd be interested to hear what steps the GSB and GSO are going to take to ensure the reputation of the fellowship is not tarnished by the negligent behaviour (yes we did say “NEGLIGENT”) of such companies as these in the future

See previous entries

Cheerio

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous …... and NO friends of fat cat, tax avoiding spongers!) 

PS Again our thanks to that small group of AA members who took the time and energy to try and protect our name when apparently neither the General Service Board nor the General Service Office could be bothered!