Old Vic sponsor Royal Bank of Canada holds over $61 billion worth of investments in companies which are complicit in war crimes, according to the UN list, and AFSC Investigate (Sept 2024). With a history steeped in colonialism and land theft, RBC is deeply invested in the genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people. Its investments include weapons manufacturers supplying Israel, companies complicit with illegal settlements, and AI systems targeting Palestinians.
Companies complicit in genocide and apartheid make up 12.8% of the bank’s total holdings (Q1 2025)
RBC invests over $9bn in weapons used against Palestinians
- RBC has invested over $9 billion in shares and loans in weapons manufacturers supplying Israel from 2022-2025, increasing its investment substantially throughout the course of the genocide.
RBC invests in General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, whose weapons have been used to support Israel’s military occupation, apartheid and genocide in Palestine, and used in attacks on civilians.
General Dynamics supplies MK84 and MK82 bombs, 2,300 of which were sent to Israel by the U.S to be dropped on Palestinians in Gaza in March 2024 and have been used in previous assaults in Gaza, and also produced Namer armoured vehicles used in Israeli assaults on Gaza and its military occupation of the West Bank.
Lockheed Martin produces the F16 fighter jets repeatedly used by Israel in attacks on Palestinians over more than two decades and the F-35 fighter jets used in Israel’s current assault on Gaza. RBC increased its investment significantly since June 2024, to $1.3billion in September 2024.
“Weapon of Choice”
One year into the genocide, RBC underwrote the largest sale of stocks in U.S history – those of the weapons manufacturer Boeing, to the tune of $21.1 bn.
Boeing’s GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs have been described as Israel’s “weapon of choice” in its 2023–2024 genocidal attacks on Gaza. The parts for these bombs are manufactured by Honeywell, in which RBC holds $1.6bn worth of shares. A component was found following an Israeli airstrike on a school in central Gaza in June 2024.
Over 65,400 Palestinians (September 2025) have been killed in Israel’s genocide, with children “killed while sleeping, playing, queuing for food and water, seeking medical care… they’ve been bombed, maimed, starved, burned alive, buried in the rubble of their homes, separated from their parents…scraping through the rubble for food, enduring amputations without anaesthetic” said the UN‘s top aid official in September 2025.
RBC invests in illeagal settlements
RBC has significant investments in companies complicit in furthering apartheid and settler colonialism in occupied Palestinian territories.
These investments come in the form of oil & gas, security and policing systems which discriminate against Palestinians, services to support apartheid infrastructure, construction, and businesses which sustain and further illegal Israeli settlements of Palestinian territory. For this reason RBC has long been a major target of the Canadian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
RBC doubles its stake in predictive AI used in the genocide
Since 2023 RBC has doubled its stake in Palantir technologies, a company supplying Israel with predictive AI for use in the military occupation and the genocide,to the tune of $159 million.
The use of such systems in the genocide in Gaza has been widely condemned including by UN experts as a major factor in the scale of destruction and loss of life.
Palantir provides the same mass surveillance tools to police departments, and RBC continues to invest in them despite the evidence of racial bias and threats to privacy.
In fact, the same technology has been used against the First Nations communities peacefully defending their lands from fossil fuel expansion funded by Royal Bank of Canada.
Settler-colonialism runs deep at RBC
RBC was a principal economic agent in the violent expansion of settler colonialism in the west of so-called Canada in the late 1800s, contributing to the genocide of First Nations peoples. By opening more branches in frontier and contested territories than any other bank during this period, RBC was instrumental in cementing colonial domination and economic infrastructure in First Nations territories, and became the nation’s biggest bank throughout this process.
The process of colonisation in so-called Canada is still underway, and so is the resistance; RBC-funded Coastal Gaslink and TMX projects are being fought intensely by First Nations communities, whose consent for pipelines on their lands is being violated.
In 2023 Chief Na’Moks of the Wet-suwet-en, stood outside the Old Vic and said:
“They break down our doors, they come at us with chainsaws, with attack dogs, with snipers. This is what the money of the Royal Bank of Canada does.”
Despite a promise that all RBC’s clients have “policies and processes consistent with the standard of free, prior and informed consent” with Indigenous communities, RBC continues to finance projects that violate Indigenous consent, on unceded territory.
This is why Palestinian solidarity organisations are working in solidarity with First Nations leaders in Canada to confront RBC. Rawan Habib, Palestinian Youth Movement, said at the RBC AGM 2024:
“We know that RBC’s investments in settler colonialism extends beyond so-called Canada as it continues to bankroll genocide in Palestine and around the world. RBC is currently funding some of the largest weapons manufacturers that are actively targeting people in Gaza and across Palestine. RBC must stop investing in genocide.”
RBC is the eighth biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world. It has poured over $290 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris climate agreement [1] , financing numerous human rights-violating and climate-wrecking projects worldwide.
From its funding of pipelines which are violently pushed through to surveillance technologies used against Palestinians in occupied territories, RBC is indifferent to a peoples’ right to land, livelihood, culture and dignity.
Royal Bank of Canada at the Old Vic
Old Vic offers sponsors such as RBC the chance to:
“enhance your corporate credibility by positioning your brand as a crucial supporter of the arts and its positive impact on the communities theatre serves…a creative stage on which to tell your brand’s story”
This sponsorship is a transaction, not a donation. It is designed to benefit RBC financially.
Not a high street bank in the UK, RBC’s London business focuses on “wealth management” for ultra rich individuals and capital markets.
RBC’s London office hosts their Global Energy Group, an “integrated investment and corporate banking team comprised of experienced professionals dedicated to the oil & gas sector”
RBC’s business in London generates profit for a tiny minority of ultra-rich individuals via investment in anything from weapons, fossil fuels and settler colonial infrastructure – all with the support and complicity of the Old Vic.
[1] 2025 BOCC report shows $34bn in 2024 alone, in addition to $256bn investments reported since 2016 Paris agreement through until 2024.
NOTES
All investments listed here represent direct investments only
Based on publicly available data only (largely U.S SEC filings) therefore likely to be an underestimate of the company’s global investments
WEAPONS: SOURCES
- Main Sources
Banking on War Crimes and Genocide Q1 2025
Don’t Bank on the Bomb provides information about loans and underwriting : Royal Bank of Canada August 2023 for year 2022-2023
Justice Please Advocates Shares September 2024
AFSC Investigate details each of company’s complicity in Israeli occupation and genocide
- Supplementary Sources
TYPE OF FINANCE
- Shares value total $5,095,641,000 “over 5 billion”
(Shares figures from Justice Peace Advocates unless otherwise stated)
Honeywell (shares) $1.6bn Sept 2024 components produced for Boeing’s munitions directly linked to genocide, see below
General Dynamics $763m (sept 2024)
Boeing $475.6m shares (Sept 2024) repeatedly used against Palestinian civilians munitions directly implicated in the genocide , see below
Northrop Grumman Group $376m components for F-35 and F-16
Lockheed Martin $1.3 billion (Fintel, Dec 5 2024)
- Loans of over $4 billion
Figures from https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/investors/ August 2023 for year 2022-2023 unless otherwise stated
See https://investigate.afsc.org/ for each company’s involvement
Airbus $497.6m
BAE systems $90.5m
General Dynamics $575.6m
Honeywell $484m
Boeing $1.49bn
L3Harris $150.6m
Leidos $107m
Lockheed Martin $344.9m
Rolls-Royce $275.7m
- Underwriting total : Involved in underwriting the sale of stocks and shares worth over $22.2 billion
In October 2024, RBC jointly managed the sale of $21.1 billion worth of Boeing’s stock; part of the biggest stock offering by any company in U.S. history
In addition to “Over $1bn” ($ 1,069,600,000) worth of underwriting to companies supplying arms to Israel
Figures from Don’t Bank on the Bomb August 2023 for year 2022-2023 unless otherwise stated
$542.90m Boeing in 2022-2023 in addition to the above
$135m General Dynamics
$82.4m Honeywell
$131.50 Lockheed Martin
$177.80 RTX – formerly Raytheon
Culture Unstained 