If actions indeed speak louder than words in the Show-Me State, then Sarah
Steelman
, Missouri State Treasurer, is showing ’
em
. It was the former financial advisor’s unconventional idea for the Missouri Investment Trust — managing long-term monies for cultural groups — to implement a “terror-free” investment fund. That’s why MIT became the first public agency in
America
to create a stock fund that screens out companies doing business with U.S.-sanctioned countries sponsoring terrorists.
“My objective was to have a portfolio that’s terror-free, clean,” says the friendly but determined Treasurer, 49. “The goal was to cut off money going to terrorists. I wanted to show people: ‘Hey, you’re in power to take action and do something about the war on terrorism.’”
In the 1990s,
Steelman
was working as an A.G. Edwards retail broker in the town of
Rolla
, south of
Jefferson City
,
Missouri
’s capital. But her long-time craving was to enter the political arena. That dream became reality when in 1998, the F.A. tossed her hat into the ring — a state senatorial race — and won. Four years later she was re-elected. By January 2005, she’d been sworn in as Missouri State Treasurer, the first Republican woman elected to the office.
Steelman’s
message to financial advisors and institutional managers?
“Take a look at what you’re investing in and empower Americans. If people start asking for funds that are free of the companies that are doing business with terrorist-sponsoring governments,” she says, “Wall Street will respond. That’s the beauty of the American markets: They will provide the product. Educate yourself and your clients. Demand the products.”
After soliciting proposals, the MIT governing board last July chose the International Alpha Select Fund, an enhanced index fund that excludes investments in companies known to be operating directly with
Iran
,
Syria
,
North Korea
,
Cuba
and
Sudan
. It is actively managed by State Street Global Advisors with research supplied by Conflict Securities Advisory
Group
. [See our Q&A with
CSAG’s
Adam
Pener
on page 41.]
As of December 31, 2006, $7.5 million of MIT’s total $30.5 million was invested in Alpha Select.
At first,
Steelman’s
pitch for a terror-free fund met with tough opposition from the public pension fund board. “There was quite a battle. The board and investment staff didn’t want to change the governance policy regarding how we look at terrorism. But I pushed it and I pushed it until it got done,” she says.