NGO report attacks pension fund 'land-grab' in Brazil

19/11/15

 

Pension providers including Sweden’s AP2, Canada’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and TIAA-CREF have been heavily criticised in a report claiming their Brazilian farmland investments are linked to a local businessman accused of land-grabbing and suspected of involvement in money laundering.

The report also says farms have been acquired through a company structure that avoids Brazil’s tight regulations on foreign investment.

The research was carried out by the NGOs GRAIN, which supports small farmers in working for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos, Inter Pares and

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US Pension Fund TIAA-CREF Involved In Brazil Land Grabs

17/11/15

US. educator pension fund TIAA-CREF has promulgated a reputation of upholding socially responsible values, and even goes as far as highlighting its role in drafting UN principles of transparency, environmental sustainability and respect for land rights in farmland purchases.

However, it turns out that the U.S. pension fund titan and its partners may have done some naughty things in a country which 

TIAA-CREF Bought Brazilian Farmland From Notorious Land Grabber, Report Says

November 17, 2015

The U.S. investment company TIAA-CREF has amassed vast holdings of Brazilian farmland through a joint venture that has done business with one of the country's most notorious "land grabbers," according to a report published by a nonprofit group.

The report details a complex business arrangement that enabled TIAA-CREF to invest in Brazil's real estate market, even though the country's laws restrict foreign ownership of land.

Much of the land purchased by the company has been in the

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This Socially Responsible Pension Fund Invested in Brazilian Farms Seized by Violent Land Grabbers

An American investment giant that manages multi-billion-dollar pension funds in the United States, Canada, and Sweden faces allegations that it has circumvented Brazilian laws on foreign acquisition of farmland, including land from a shady Brazilian business figure accused of two murders.

Acquisitions of Brazilian farmland by the US-based Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association–College Retirement Equities Fund, or TIAA-CREF — which promotes transparency, social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and respect for land rights — grew by over 145 percent between 2012 and 2014 to 256,324 hectares, as part of a $5.1 billion global portfolio of farmland in several

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American Financial Services Giant Attacked for Role in Brazilian Land Grab

Its long acronym, TIAA-CREF, stands for what sounds like a lofty purpose: Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund. Based in New York with origins dating back to the time of Andrew Carnegie, the 97-year-old company boasts that it is the United States’ largest retirement fund manager for professionals who work in the education, research, medical and cultural fields. And this is a “different” organization, according to TIAA-CREF, as it has worked on corporate social

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