In the early months of this year, Generation Investment Management, the nearly $30 billion ethical investment firm connected to former US vice-president Al Gore, trimmed its stake in Kingspan, the Irish insulation manufacturer from about 4 per cent to just under 3 per cent (it had held more than 11 per cent in 2013). This happened in the run-up to the publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry.
That was a nervy time for Kingspan, which had been the subject of a huge volume of unflattering evidence about the way in which Kingspan had tested and marketed some of its products in the years prior to the fire.
Kingspan’s products hadn’t directly contributed to the fire – its insulation boards made up less than 5 per cent of the make-up of Grenfell’s insulation, and the company had no knowledge of their use in the building’s refurbishment. But the report found that the company “knowingly created a false market” for the insulation used on the facade of the Grenfell Tower by falsely claiming it successfully passed tests to allow it to be used on high-rise buildings over 18m in height. It was a bad look for Kingspan.
Generation had expressed some concerns in its annual investor letter, which found the Irish company had fallen short of some of the principles defined by the UN’s social development goals, against which the fund makes its investment decisions, some of which “relates to the presence of Kingspan insulation boards on the Grenfell Tower in London”.
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Generation had “engaged extensively with Kingspan about these failings”, and the company had “taken significant actions to address them”. Generation said it would “continue to monitor effectiveness of the actions taken”.
Evidently, Gore’s fund has been convinced, because this week it spent about €16 million to increase its stake in Kingspan, raising it from 2.9 per cent to 3.01 per cent, which was worth about €425 million at the company’s closing share price in Dublin on Friday of €77.65.
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