The Church Commissioners have said they no longer have any financial interest in the payday loan company Wonga, and that they did not make any profit from the investment.
Last July the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced plans to create a network of credit unions that would force payday lenders such as Wonga out of business. He was then embarrassed to discover that the Commissioners, which manages around £6.1bn in investments on behalf of the Church of England, had indirectly invested in Wonga.
It has taken almost a year for the Commissioners to remove its indirect exposure to Wonga through its venture capital portfolio. It will announce changes to its policy on indirect investments later this year.
In a statement yesterday, the Commissioners said: “The Church Commissioners estimate that if they had had to sell their entire venture capital holdings they might have lost £3-9m to remove the exposure to Wonga, which was worth less than £100,000.
“The Commissioners are pleased that another way forward has been agreed given their fiduciary duties to clergy pensioners and to all the parts of the Church they support financially.”
Other changes include a tightening up of investment restrictions for direct investments, and the appointment of a responsible investment position in the investment team to implement the ethical investment policy.
The charity's accounts for the year to December 2013 showed the value of its assets had risen from £5.5bn to £6.1bn. In those accounts it warned that it may take "considerable time" to remove its investment in Wonga because "in a venture capital fund exposure to a single company cannot be sold, only the whole fund, usually at a significant discount".
In the June issue of Charity Finance, Edward Mason, secretary to the Church of England’s ethical investment advisory group, outlined the Church of England’s approach to ethical investment.
