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SACRAMENTO — California pension funds should divest their $752 million investment in companies that have moved their headquarters to tax havens such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, and should halt future investments in those corporations, state Treasurer Phil Angelides said Thursday. 

Angelides proposed a blacklist of 22 companies that have moved to avoid paying taxes, as part of his effort to use the power of institutional investors to influence corporate behavior. 

Foreign tax shelters are a growing trend, Angelides said Thursday. 

“You have companies here that are setting up sham offshore mailboxes just to avoid paying taxes,” he said. “It’s not clear that Congress is going to close the loopholes this year.” 

Shareholders’ rights are weakened when companies move to offshore locations, Angelides said, because the companies’ operations are less visible. It’s more difficult for shareholders to sue if the company is in a tax haven. 

“This kind of conduct is part of a pattern of behavior, how to bend the rules, game the system for short-term gains,” he said. “It’s the same kind of thinking that led to accounting tricks at Enron and WorldCom.” 

Angelides has proposed other measures to reform corporate behavior by strategic investments, but said he’s finding a wider audience for his message after several high-profile bankruptcies that stemmed from accounting irregularities. 

“I think people are learning that companies who violate environmental laws or exploit its workers are the same companies that wouldn’t think twice of sticking it to their shareholders,” Angelides said. 

Pension funds and mutual funds own 42 percent of American companies’ stocks, he said, and can use that as leverage to encourage better corporate behavior. 

Angelides sits on the boards of both the California Public Employees Retirement System, which is the nation’s largest public pension fund with $150 billion in investments, and the California State Teachers Retirement Fund, which controls a $100 billion investment portfolio. 

CalPERS spokeswoman Pat Macht said the board would discuss the policy at the August meeting, but probably wouldn’t take action until September. 

“CalPERS has been voting proxies against companies that have done this,” she said, “but we’ve never had a policy discussion on the issue.” 

In the last seven years, the board has voted only once to divest and that was with tobacco stocks, Macht said. 

CalSTRS spokeswoman Sherry Reser said Angelides’ proposal would be discussed at the next board meeting in October. 

In addition to the CalPERS and CalSTRS proposal, Angelides also announced a new policy for the funds his office oversees. That policy bars the treasurer’s office, which controls the state’s $45 billion investment account, from investing in “expatriate” corporations. 

Citing that policy, Angelides removed Ingersoll-Rand from the list of approved companies for the state’s $42 billion pooled investment account. The company recently reincorporated in Bermuda, though its U.S. offices are still in New Jersey, estimating that it will save between $40 million to $60 million in taxes for 2002. 

“Ingersoll-Rand was on the approved list. Now they’re removed,” Angelides said. “They’re not an American company.” 

Ingersoll-Rand spokesman Paul Dickard said 89 percent of the company’s shareholders approved the move, which could save the corporation up to $60 million in 2002. 

“We would be glad to address any concerns the state of California has with respect to our reincorporation before it unilaterally denies itself and the people of California the opportunity to invest in our company or to benefit from the good work of Ingersoll-Rand employees,” Dickard said. 

The company is also on the list of 23 companies that would be barred from CalPERS and CalSTRS investments. 

That threat should get some response from the business community, said Sol Price, the founder of Price Club. 

“Would the thought of losing a customer the size of CalPERS scare me? You’re damn right,” Price said. 

Angelides and other fund managers have the resources to research corporate governance in companies in which they invest — and smaller investors can follow their lead, Price said. 

“He’s doing what he should be doing — he’s becoming vocal, as all large investors should,” he said.