Stop the Flow At the Source

The following is a paraphrased summary of a recent phone conversation I had with the company that manages my 401k plan.

"Hello, 401k investment company, how can I help you?"

"I'd like to get a summary of the various stocks that my 401k has been invested in.  Specifically, I'd like to find out if any of my money is being invested in British Petroleum and if so I'd like to divest those, please."

"Certainly sir.  The particular plan you're currently in has your investments in several different mutual funds.  If any are in BP then they would be under the foreign investments which you do have a percentage in.  These mutual funds actually contain hundreds of individual listings."

"Okay, I can wait while you check."

The person on the other end started naming a few things as they looked through the holdings and then said, "Ah, BP PLC is listed here, sir."

"Okay, how do I get rid of them?"

"It's actually part of several mutual funds so in essence trying to get rid of them would be like getting rid of the baby with the bath water..."

"Bye-bye baby, how do I do it?"

At this point, the person on the other end of the call seemed a little surprised that I wasn't willing to just accept his explanation and offered to transfer me to someone else.  Another person answered me on short order and I again explained the reason for my call and was given a bit more useful information to work with.

Essentially, most of their investment plans have some portion designated for foreign holdings and there are no readily available tools to determine exactly which companies are part of which mutual funds.  The long and the short of it is that if I want to stop the flow of any of my money to British Petroleum then I have to stop all of my investments in any foreign mutual funds.

Thankfully, the company that manages my 401k has a very helpful web site full of lots of useful resources for me to peruse.  I'm not a big investor and certainly not the most financially savvy person in the world by any means.  Nevertheless, I'm going to spend some time researching my options and find the right plan for me that will allow my money to grow while keeping it away from a company that I have a zero comfort level doing any business with whatsoever.