At Great Cost: The companies building nuclear weapons and their financiers

Every year for more than a decade, ICAN and PAX have worked together to publish information about the companies building nuclear weapons, and the financial actors backing them. This year, the report “At Great Cost: The companies building nuclear weapons and their financiers”, found a powerful trend: a 23% drop in overall investors since the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, went into effect. In other words: the ban on nuclear weapons is making financial institutions reconsider their ties to the companies that produce them.

Check out our findings

The growing international legal norm banning nuclear weapons is also being used by some investors as a guide. In fact, a group of 131 institutional investors, representing over four trillion US dollars in assets under management, have expressed support for the Treaty, including through the ICAN – Etica SGR Nuclear Weapons Free Finance Initiative.

This is great news, of course, but our work is by no means done. All nine nuclear-armed states are modernising, and in some cases expanding, their nuclear arsenals and some companies and financial institutions are profiting shamelessly. Our report provides details about the nuclear weapons work these companies (and others) are contracted to do, and about the banks, pension funds, insurance companies and others investing or financing the nuclear weapons industry.

Here are some of the key findings:

• 260 institutions still have significant financing relationships with the 24 main companies involved in producing nuclear weapons.
• While the share and bond prices have gone up in value, the corporate loans and investment banking are decreasing.
• The top companies profiting from nuclear weapons production are Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and RTX.

With certain voices trying desperately to encourage such dangerous investments, it is time to increase the pressure to stop funding the nuclear weapons industry. For the last several years, shareholder resolutions have been filed at a number of these companies raising concerns about their human rights record and the production of key components for nuclear weapons. These companies should get called out- will you help us?

 

We are steadily pushing back against the industry’s efforts to keep nuclear weapons around forever,

Thank you for your support,

Susi Snyder,
Programme Coordinator
ICAN