SEC Website shows Companies on Terror List

SEC Web Site Shows Companies With Activities in Countries on State Dept. Terrorism List

The government has launched a Web site that allows investors to track whether companies have business interests in countries the U.S. designates as "state sponsors of terrorism."

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday introduced the site, which links to information from the companies' most recent annual reports that reference any of the five listed countries.

Iran has the most companies listed at 43, followed by Sudan at 32, Cuba with 22, 19 in Syria, and five in North Korea.

Only two companies -- U.K.-based HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's largest bank, and Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-largest bank -- had business activities in all five countries. But numerous firms, including Nokia Corp., Siemens AG and Total SA, disclosed activities in multiple countries.

"No investor should ever have to wonder whether his or her investments or retirement savings are indirectly subsidizing a terrorist haven or genocidal state," SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said in a release.

Federal law already requires companies to report on any material activities in a country on the Secretary of State's terrorism list and the SEC is now making that information "readily accessible to the investing public," Cox said.

But the existence of a disclosure does not mean that the company directly or indirectly supports terrorism or is otherwise engaged in any improper activity, the SEC said.

The site can be accessed on the "Investor Information" section of the SEC's home page at http://www.sec.gov.

Our take on this news: We believe longtime Wall Street bulldog and wealthy Minneapolis financier Richard Christenson had been advocating to do just this for years! What took so long to do this?