An ethical fund manager will sell its stake in Corporate Travel Management over concerns the burgeoning Brisbane-headquartered company is profiting from the controversial housing of asylum seekers on a barge in the UK.
CTM gained recent prominence after securing a A$3bn (£1.6bn) contract overseeing the UK’s new asylum accommodation ships, including a 222-cabin barge moored in the port of Portland, Dorset.
The barge forms part of the government’s plan to reduce reliance on hotels, and has attracted protests and raised concerns over the treatment of asylum seekers.
CTM also recently signed a four-year contract for travel and accommodation services with the Australian government. The two contracts have helped transform the company into one of the world’s biggest global corporate and government travel managers.
Ethical fund Future Superhas told Guardian Australia it will divest its holdings in CTM due to concerns over the UK arrangement.
Chief impact officer, Emily Flood, said the UK government’s wider migration measures were “at variance with the country’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law”.
“Future Super applies a screen to remove companies generating revenue from the mandatory detention of asylum seekers,” Flood said. [See footnote.]
The pension fund manager has A$700,000 invested in CTM according to its most recent financial disclosures. It will sell the shares later this year and they won’t be eligible to be re-included in the manager’s pension products for the duration of the UK contract, which runs for at least two years.
CTM declined to comment on the decision by Future Super.
CTM is included in many super fund portfolios, however only those with ethical screens would typically consider removing them as a result of the UK contract.
As its name suggests, CTM built its business by managing travel arrangements for businesses, allowing workers to book hotels, cars and flights.
While the pandemic upended many travel businesses, CTM found a lucrative niche sourcing hotels for quarantined travellers and operating room reservation systems.
At the request of the UK, it also chartered flights around the world to repatriate tens of thousands of Britons, paving the way for future government contracts that required problem solving.
CTM has subcontracting arrangements in place to provide the barge, called Bibby Stockholm, and related services such as staff.
The barge is owned by the same operator that provided the Bibby Progress, a vessel that was formerly used to house immigration detention staff off Manus Island, the location of an Australian offshore detention facility.
CTM has forecast a profit result of up to A$170m for the 12 months to 30 June. Its European division is helping drive profitability, backed by the new UK contract.
The company said the updated guidance demonstrated the “rapid growth” of the business.
The British Home Office has said that the number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK was a “national emergency”. It has been argued it would be more cost effective to spend money on employing case workers to clear the backlog rather than barges.
• Do you know more? Contact jonathan.barrett@theguardian.com
• This article was amended on 17 January 2024. An earlier version referred to the “mandatory detention” of asylum seekers (as phrase that also appears in a quote from Future Super). People on the Bibby Stockholm are offered the housing on a “no-choice basis” but they are not detained in immigration terms and the UK government describes it as “non-detained accommodation”, although some critics have suggested the arrangements amount to detention.
