Nordea says its sustainable funds won't buy more Facebook stock

[March 21, 2018]  STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Nordea, the Nordic region's biggest bank, will not let its sustainable funds buy more Facebook shares for the time being, its head of sustainable finance said.

A Facebook sign is displayed at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 23, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Facebook has been rocked this week by a whistleblower who said Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political firm hired by Donald Trump for the 2016 election campaign, had improperly accessed information on 50 million Facebook users.

"The shares that we own in Facebook in sustainable funds, they will remain, but the fund managers can't buy any more," Sasja Beslik, Head of Group Sustainable Finance at the bank told Reuters on Wednesday, after announcing the decision on Twitter late on Tuesday.

“Given the high-level revelations and the turmoil surrounding the company with a strong public backlash, coupled with the overhanging threat of increasing regulation of the platforms and the EU GDPR on the horizon, we choose to quarantine Facebook,” he added, referring to tougher EU rules known as General Data Protection Regulation.

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; Editing by Mark Potter)

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