Calpers to target Wall St titans

CALPERS, the largest US pension fund, is taking aim at some of the titans of Wall Street and withholding its votes for the re-election of Sandy Weill and Charles Prince as directors of Citigroup as well as Warren Buffett at Coca-Cola.

It is part of the fund's campaign to promote more-rigorous standards of corporate governance.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, which has assets of $167bn (£90.8bn), said it will not back directors at a dozen US companies, including telecoms group Sprint, oil and gas producer Burlington Resources and utility PG&E Corp.

The fund will also withhold its 26.7m votes in Citigroup from chairman and former chief executive Weill and his replacement as chief exec, Charles Prince, saying Weill 'had a significant role' in scandals that rocked the firm while Prince had potential conflicts of interest.

Similarly, its 12.7m Coca-Cola shares will not be voted in favour of Buffett, saying he and four others on the soft drinks company's audit committee had approved nonaudit work from the auditor.