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At Great Cost: The companies building nuclear weapons and their financiers, the latest Don’t Bank on the Bomb report issued today shows the number of financial institutions backing the nuclear weapons industry has dropped by a quarter since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) went into effect in 2021.
The 2024 Don’t Bank on the Bomb analysis identifies 260 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and other financial institutions with significant finance or investment relations with the 24 main nuclear weapons producers, a 23% decrease from the 338 profiteers identified before the TPNW went into effect.
All nine nuclear-armed states are modernising, and in some cases expanding, their nuclear arsenals. Several of these countries contract the private sector to manufacture and service their nuclear weapons; the 24 most significant of these companies are identified in this report.
Who is profiting?
The top companies profiting from nuclear weapons contracts are Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and RTX. The governance track record of some of the nuclear weapons producing-companies also raises risks for investors. As the report cites, Boeing alone pleaded guilty in 2024 to criminal fraud in relation to two fatal plane crashes and RTX agreed to pay $950 million to settle fraud and bribery cases in the United States.
During the period covered by this report, just under $270 billion was provided to the 24 nuclear weapon producing companies in loans and underwriting, a drop of $6.2 billion since the previous report. The biggest lenders are Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase.
However, share and bond values increased, with investors holding $513.6 billion in shares and bonds, an increase of $36.7 billion. The top shareholders are Vanguard, Capital Group, and Blackrock.
The impact of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
The steady decline in the number of financial institutions investing in nuclear weapons is a significant and positive trend. The TPNW, also known as the nuclear ban treaty, has created a new international norm that is having a stigmatising effect on nuclear weapons, and the companies that produce them. More and more institutions which take Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations seriously are choosing to turn their backs on nuclear - and other prohibited - weapons.
The downward trend has continued despite calls from political and military leaders for investors to put more money into arms companies. Despite official encouragement to invest more in arms producers, many financial institutions have stuck to their policy of excluding the companies identified in this report, often based on ethical concerns over the production of nuclear weapons systems.
In a sign of how responsible investors are increasingly looking to the TPNW’s establishment of the ban on nuclear weapons under international law as a guide to best practice, a group of 131 institutional investors, representing over four trillion US dollars in assets under management, have expressed support for the Treaty, including through the ICAN- Etica SGR Nuclear Weapons Free Finance Initiative.