Washington Post (December 30)
ESG investing has become a political hot potato in the U.S. New York is considering a motion to shift from BlackRock, which “oversees $42.3 billion in index funds for city pensions” to other asset managers with a more proactive stance on ESG. Ironically, “BlackRock and its leader Larry Fink leaned into ESG during a different political moment. But that changed after Texas passed a law blacklisting BlackRock for its fossil fuel ‘boycott.’”
Tags: $42.3 billion, Asset managers, Blacklisting, BlackRock, Boycott, City pensions, ESG investing, Fink, Fossil fuel, Hot potato, Index funds, New York, Political, Texas, U.S.
Investment Week (July 17)
“BlackRock teams are ‘very concerned’ with capturing the tone of US President Donald Trump’s policy stance, to the extent that the asset management giant has spent time tracking the president’s use of capital letters in his social media.” For a while, they found the ratio of upper to lower case letters was a good indicator of the President’s tone, but their approach has been stymied because he now “writes everything in capitals.”
Tags: Asset management, BlackRock, Capital letters, Concerned, Indicator, Policy stance, President, Social media, Stymied, Tone, Tracking, Trump, U.S.
Barron’s (April 13)
“Wall Street chief executives’ cautious-to-downbeat remarks about the economy on Friday stood in contrast with their firms’ first-quarter showings and their outlooks for the rest of the year. JPMorgan Chase +4.00%, Wells Fargo -0.95%, and Morgan Stanley +1.44% reported solid earnings results, while BlackRock +2.33% posted another quarter of record assets.” Investors who were “expecting market-sensitive firms to dial down their earnings forecasts” instead found the firms “left their outlooks largely unchanged.” This could, however, just ”mean revisions are in store for later in 2025.”
Tags: Assets, BlackRock, Cautious, Chief executives, Downbeat, Earnings results, Economy, Forecasts, Investors, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Outlooks, Q1, Remarks, Wall Street, Wells Fargo
Financial Times (January 10)
“BlackRock has become the latest financial firm to bail out of a big climate change industry group in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as US president and heightened regulatory scrutiny. The world’s largest money manager told institutional clients in a letter on Thursday that it had quit Net Zero Asset Managers,” which seeks “the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.”
Tags: 2050, BlackRock, Climate change, Election, Financial firm, GHG emissions, Money manager, Net Zero Asset Managers, Regulatory scrutiny, Trump, U.S.
Institutional Investor (December 23)
“ESG and DEI may be under attack,” but they are unlikely to disappear. “Recent high-profile news like the case led by the Texas Attorney General against BlackRock, Vanguard Group, and State Street Global Advisors… are indicative of the battle taking place across the country.” However, the economic argument for ESG and DEI programs suggests they will persist. Conversely, “restrictive policies at the state or federal level are liable to cost both businesses and investors.”
Tags: Attack, BlackRock, Businesses, Cost, DEI, Economic argument, ESG, Restrictive policies, State Street, Texas, Vanguard
Investment Week (August 22)
“BlackRock’s support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues has plummeted to a new low, now representing less than one-tenth of the backing these proposals received in 2021…. The firm only supported 4% (20 out of 593) of proposals put forward by shareholders on climate and natural capital and company impacts on people.” This marked a significant decline from “the 47% high in 2021, at the height of the ESG investing boom.”
Tags: 2021, BlackRock, Climate, Company impacts, ESG, Investing boom, Natural capital, Plummeted, Shareholder proposals, Support
Institutional Investor (April 26)
“This may have been the first presidential primary debates season where BlackRock’s investment strategy was a talking point! Twenty-two states have introduced some form of ‘anti-ESG’ regulations, with more than 75 bills pending in various legislatures…. Prominent hedge fund managers, amid very public social media meltdowns, are waging war against diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Tags: Anti-ESG regulations, BlackRock, Debates, DEI, Hedge-fund, Investment strategy, Legislatures, Meltdowns, Prominent, Social media, War
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
