New York Times (February 16)
“BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and State Street are quitting or scaling back their ties to an influential global investment coalition.” The former reduced its ties with “Climate Action 100+, a global investment coalition that has been pushing companies to decarbonize” while the latter two outright quit the coalition. “All told, the moves amount to a nearly $14 trillion exit from an organization meant to marshal Wall Street’s clout to expand the climate agenda.”
Tags: $14 trillion, BlackRock, Climate Action 100+, Climate agenda, Coalition, Decarbonize, Global, Investment, JPMorgan Chase, Quitting, Scaling back, State Street, Wall Street
Institutional Investor (March 10)
“A politicized debate over the use of environmental, social, and governance principles in investing has led more than a dozen states to propose legislation that forces institutional investors to boycott certain companies, or bars the use of ESG factors entirely.” While BlackRock “has drawn the most attention from ESG critics.” Still, the massive asset manager has remained “an outspoken supporter of sustainability” and changed very little in its 2023 investment stewardship plan. BlackRock simply “doesn’t seem fazed, even as legislation and divestments could cause allocators to pull billions of dollars from the firm.”
Tags: 2023, Asset manager, Bars, BlackRock, Boycott, Critics, Debate, Divestments, ESG, Institutional investors, Investing, Investment, Legislation, Outspoken, Politicized, Stewardship, Supporter, Sustainability
Financial Times (November 21)
“We’ve been sceptical of the asset management craze for ESG…. So it’s only fair that we highlight some intriguing work that shows that just maybe some of all this is actually having a clear, measurable and positive impact.” Female representation on U.S. corporate boards remains low, but “grew by over 50 per cent in 2016-19, going from a pretty pathetic 13.1 per cent of directors to a still-bad-but-much better 19.7 per cent.” Some attribute “this to the role played by the passive investment industry’s ‘Big Three’ — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — which started to very publicly make a lot of noise about this issue a few years back.”
Tags: “Big Three”, 2016-19, Asset management, BlackRock, Corporate boards, Craze, Directors, ESG, Female representation, Measurable, Passive investment, Positive impact, Sceptical, State Street, U.S., Vanguard
Wall Street Journal (September 6)
Numerous states have warned the “Big Three” asset managers (BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street) that their ESG policies appear to run counter to “the sole interest rule, a well-established legal principle. The sole interest rule requires investment fiduciaries to act to maximize financial returns, not to promote social or political objectives.”
Tags: “Big Three”, Asset managers, BlackRock, ESG, Fiduciaries, Financial returns, Investment, Maximize, Political, Social, Sole interest rule, State Street, States, U.S., Vanguard, Warned
Australian Financial Review (July 17)
“Oil has begun to drop back down this week to pre-invasion levels as traders brace for a sharp drop-off in consumption. But food price inflation remains stubbornly high.” Nevertheless, food prices remain largely off the radar. “The dramatic spikes in oil and mineral prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have distracted investors from the long-lasting and more dangerous impact of food inflation.” This has led BlackRock founder Larry Fink to sound the alarm on food inflation which also has profound geopolitical impacts.
Tags: BlackRock, Consumption, Dangerous, Distracted, Drop-off, Food, Impact, Inflation, Invasion, Investors, Larry Fink, Mineral, Oil, Pre-invasion, Russia, Spikes, Traders, Ukraine
Forbes (March 24)
In his latest letter to shareholders, BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink noted that “the war between Russia and Ukraine has heralded the end of globalization, as the conflict has upended the current world order that has been in place since the Cold War and will have lasting global economic consequences.”
Tags: BlackRock, Cold war, Conflict, Fink, Globalization, Russia, Shareholders, Ukraine, Upended, War
Institutional Investor (April 1)
“Traditional asset management firms are expected to lose around a third of their assets under management as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.” Fitch Ratings expects BlackRock to be least scathed, although it is still expected to lose over a quarter of its AUM, while AllianceBernstein is “projected to be the worst hit of the peer group,” losing up to 40.4% of its assets.
Tags: AllianceBernstein, Asset management, AUM, BlackRock, Coronavirus, Fitch Ratings, Pandemic, Traditional
Institutional Investor (January 7)
“Institutional investors representing more than $7 trillion plan to pull money from public equities amid concerns the bull market is ending, according to a client survey released Monday by BlackRock.”
Institutional Investor (January 16)
“BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has written a letter to CEOs detailing his requests for corporate stewardship as the firm moves toward shareholder activism year-round…. The letter is the latest move by an asset manager to focus more on shareholder activism and environmental, social and governance criteria in investments. For instance, BlackRock competitor Vanguard Group said in an August report that it is taking a more active approach to monitoring companies in its portfolio, while a McKinsey & Co. study published in October found that asset managers no longer consider ESG a niche strategy.”
Tags: Asset manager, BlackRock, CEOs, ESG, Fink, McKinsey, Niche strategy, Portfolio, Shareholder activism, Stewardship, Vanguard
Washington Post (June 1)
“Even as the Trump administration’s commitment to the [Paris] climate accord wavered, the Exxon vote showed that climate concerns were gaining ground in the business world.” BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street apparently cast their “shares in opposition to Exxon management.” Their success “marked an important step for groups that have been trying to force corporations to adopt greater disclosure and transparency about the financial fallout of climate change.” Ultimately, 62.3% of shares cast were against ExxonMobil management, effectively forcing “the oil giant to report on the impact of global measures designed to keep climate change to 2 degrees centigrade.”
Tags: BlackRock, Climate, Disclosure, Exxon, Fallout, Impact, Management, Opposition, Paris accord, State Street, Transparency, Trump, Vanguard
