PepsiCo shareholders on May 7 will vote on a resolution calling for the company to report how it plans to deal with the business and employee impact of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. The resolution was filed by Mennonite Mutual Aid, Goshen, Ind., which has $1.2 billion in pension and other assets, along with other religious institutional funds.
"Besides being a humanitarian issue, this also is a very real business issue for PepsiCo and its shareholders,” Mark Regier, MMA stewardship investing services manager, said in a statement. "The company has told us the spreading pandemic of AIDS in Africa is not material to their business. But shareholders don’t know that for sure until research is done.”
In a statement, officials from PepsiCo, Purchase, N.Y., said the company "already offers employees in the region access to company-subsidized health benefits. … The region accounts for less than 1% of PepsiCo’s employees, 0.5% of revenues and an even smaller percentage of company assets.”
