U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management said Tuesday it would immediately begin selling its investment in gunmaker Freedom Group in light of last week’s school shooting in Connecticut.
Cerberus acquired Bushmaster in 2006 and later merged it with other gun companies to create Freedom Group, which reported net sales of $677.3 million for the nine months ending September 2012, up from $564.6 million in the same period a year ago.
Bushmaster is the manufacturer of the AR-15 rifle used by the shooter in the Newtown killings that claimed 27 lives, including 20 schoolchildren.
“We do not believe that Freedom Group or any single company or individual can prevent senseless violence or the illegal use or procurement of firearms and ammunition,” Cerberus said in a statement.
The private equity firm said it will retain a financial adviser to sell its interests in Freedom Group, and will then return that capital to investors.
Pressure mounted on Cerberus as the California State Teachers’ Retirement System said Monday it was reviewing its investment with the private equity firm in light of the Connecticut school shooting.
It’s time for anyone owning stock in gun manufacturers to divest themselves of it, to show solidarity with the parents of the Newtown victims. America simply does not need all the weapons these corporations have been hawking, or the paranoia they promote just to get people to buy more and more and more weapons.
Show solidarity by selling any stock a person might have in a firearms company? What if the psycho had driven a Chevy into a bunch of kids……..sell your GM stock?
One has nothing to do with the other, but this is yet another knee jerk reaction that solves nothing at all but makes the left feel like they have actually done something.
What if somebody with a gun had stopped the psycho from killing children and staff at that school? Would you still think it just makes sense to sell off stock in a fire arms company?