San Francisco City & County Employees' Retirement System is calling for companies to take action in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and is specifically asking S&P 500 companies to provide reports on what actions they are taking.
The $25 billion pension fund is calling for companies to take actions including providing hotels and sporting venues as facilities for health-care professionals and patients, according to a Monday news release emailed by Executive Director Jay Huish.
SFERS has issued "a call to action for all businesses to find a way to reorganize their manufacturing, distribution, resources and service capabilities to enable us all to win the fight against COVID‐19" because the nation's health-care system needs assistance.
Other actions the pension fund suggests are the diversion of raw materials, the ramping up of production and the repurposing of manufacturing lines to provide medical needs such as testing equipment, respirators, ventilators, cleaning materials and more.
As an institutional investor, SFERS says it is asking S&P 500 companies to report what actions they are taking via social media with the hashtag #sp500covidfight.
The pension fund in the news release cites Amazon.com, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as companies that have "redirected operations and redistributed resources in this international fight against COVID-19."
SFERS also asked other institutional investors such as pension funds, foundations and endowments to publicly join them in the call to action.
