Soros Fund Management (SFM), the asset management firm founded by the famed investor and businessman George Soros, has said that it plans to sell its stake in Palantir, which just went public in September, over disagreement with the company’s practices. 

In a statement released this week, SFM said that it “does not approve of Palantir’s business practices” and “has sold all shares in the company that it is not legally or contractually obliged to hold and will continue to sell shares as permitted”.

Soros Fund Management got its stake in Palantir through a 2012 investment by one of its portfolio managers which it says no longer works at the firm. The fund’s current interest in Palantir amounts to roughly 1% of the data mining and analytics company’s Class A limited voting shares.

Palantir is not at all new to controversy over its business practices. The company has long drawn allegations of enabling controversial data surveillance by US agencies, particularly the National Security Agency (NSA), and has also drawn controversy for its work with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

After 17 years as a private company, Palantir went public just in September this year and now trades on the New York Stock Exchange. The company currently sports a market value of over $30 billion, having seen its share price rise from $10 at debut to about $18 currently.

Photo: George Soros, Chairman, Soros Fund Management by World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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