New law requires state divest holdings in Russia and Belarus which are now worth almost nothing

A bill Governor Tim Walz signed Friday requires the state divest its holdings in Russia and Belarus (bell-uh-ROOS), but MNN’s Bill Werner reports those investments — part of the state employee pension fund — are now worth virtually nothing because of western sanctions and other factors. The State Board of Investment says at the end of 2021 the state had pension fund investments in Russia and Belarus with an estimated market value of 240 million dollars and those are now down to about four million dollars, due to a combination of a drop in value and state selling some of those holdings in the past few months. The board says “prices for most securities have been marked down to near zero, reflecting the high uncertainty of when or if any value can be recouped.” Officials do note that, even before the devaluation, Russia and Belarus investments represented only about one-quarter-of-one-percent of the state’s pension fund investments.