New York -- As a follow-up to his June 2007 analysis of New York State pension fund assets which found that $12 billion of New York's total $75 billion in equity assets are invested in companies that do business with nations that sponsor terrorism, Senator Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester), Tuesday released further information about the exact amount of money invested in companies doing business with Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Of the 235 state pension fund holdings with financial links to terror, 204 have ties to Iran (approx. $10.4 billion or 14% of the total portfolio), 30 have ties to North Korea (approx. $934 million or 1% of the total portfolio), 111 have ties to Sudan (approx. $8.4 billion or 11% of the total portfolio) and 133 have ties to Syria (approx. $9 billion or 12% of the total portfolio). The total exceeds the 235 holdings or 16% of total equity assets cited in Klein's original report, Terrorist Treasury: Investing in Our Enemies, because some companies are active in more than one terror-sponsoring nation.

The report, compiled with the assistance of Conflict Securities Advisory Group, Inc. a Washington, DC based research and consulting firm that specializes in the assessment and management of global security risk - i.e., the risk associated with corporate ties to countries of security concern, terrorism or weapons proliferation, cited several well known conglomerates like the Chevron Corporation ($537,599,794), Coca-Cola ($349,280,545), and Royal Dutch Shell ($209,991,294) with financial ties to terrorist nations.

To address the problem of state investments inadvertently funding terror, Klein introduced The New York Terror Free Investment Act of 2007 to limit the investment of public retirement funds in corporate or financial entities doing business in or with the nations of Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan, nations which have been designated by the U.S. State Dept. as state sponsors of terrorism.  Similar legislation introduced after Klein’s report passed the Senate overwhelmingly in June, and would require the State Comptroller to divest from and refrain from any further public pension fund investments in Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan, as well as to issue a report outlining any current public pension fund investments in these nations within 6 months.