NYC Pension Asks Facebook, Other Giants for Diversity Data

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, on behalf of the city’s pension fund, is asking Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and a handful of other giant corporations to disclose data on the diversity of their vendors and suppliers.

New York City’s pension system is a significant shareholder of all the companies.

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The letter campaign, which also targets Starbucks Corp., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Alcoa Inc., extends a 2014 initiative that asked for similar details from 20 more of the $163 billion city pension funds’ largest investments. Eight of those companies, including Apple Inc and Qualcomm Inc., have since agreed to release the value and percentage of total spending they do with minority vendors, the comptroller’s office said Thursday in a statement.

New York’s letter, which was the same for all recipients, asks companies to disclose the number of their diverse suppliers and their goals for increasing such contracts. Stringer also asks for senior management and board oversight of the process, and suggests compensation-related incentives for employees and managers.

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“A more diverse supply base helps our portfolio companies to create sustainable competitive advantage and long-term shareowner value,” he wrote. The comptroller’s office increased funds managed by minority and women business enterprises to $14.4 billion this year from $5.5 billion in 2010.

Institutional investors also seek boardroom and employee diversity. This year, nine companies in the S&P 500 — the most ever — faced demands from shareholders that they adopt new diversity plans, according to ISS Corporate Solutions, a corporate-governance consultancy. Only 12.8 percent of companies currently giving specific details about directors named in their annual filings, according to a report released last month by researcher Equilar Inc.