New York Times (August 17)
“The political fight over environmental, social and governance investing continues in corporate America,” though opponents appear to be “making little headway in the boardroom.” During the first six months of 2023, Morningstar “tracked 43 anti-E.S.G. shareholder proposals,” finding that “on average they received only 7 percent support, compared with more than 30 percent across all proposals.”
Tags: 2023, Anti-E.S.G., Boardroom, Environmental, Governance, Headway, Investing, Morningstar, Political fight, Shareholder proposals, Social, U.S.
American Banker (August 9)
“Bad actors, unconfined by ethical boundaries, recently released two large language models designed to help fraudsters write phishing prompts and hackers write malware.” In the future, “banks and other companies may need to contend” with novel threats “as fraudsters master the use of large language models.” Companies will also need to consider many risks “when building and deploying their own large language models: theft of models; leaks of information (such as investing advice or personal transaction histories) by model outputs: and manipulation of models by poisoned data (such as open-source data that a malicious actor has intentionally manipulated to be inaccurate).”
Tags: Bad actors, Banks, Ethical boundaries, Fraudsters, Hackers, Investing, Large language models, Malware, Manipulation, Phishing, Risks, Theft, Threats, Transaction
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
Institutional Investor (December 22)
“Africa may not be the first continent that comes to mind for investing in emerging markets — but given its vast potential, maybe it should be.” Moreover, “Africa is increasingly becoming a critical player in the race to net zero, thanks to its population, infrastructure, and resources.”
Tags: Africa, Continent, Critical, Emerging markets, Infrastructure, Investing, Net zero, Population, Potential
Institutional Investor (November 23)
“Plan fiduciaries investing according to environmental, social, and governance principles may be breathing a sigh of relief after the Department of Labor finalized the rule allowing retirement plans to take these factors into consideration.” The new DOL rules “reversed two regulations issued under the Trump administration, which banned plan fiduciaries from investing in ‘non-pecuniary’ instruments.”
Tags: Banned Non-pecuniary, Department of Labor, ESG, Factors, Fiduciaries, Investing, Regulations, Relief, Retirement plans, Reversed, Rule, Trump administration
Institutional Investor (September 23)
“The pushback against environmental, social, and governance investing by red state politicians isn’t yet slowing down many asset managers’ expansions into strategies that have been among the most popular in recent years.” There is “no doubt the anti-ESG movement is gaining traction and could disrupt the industry,” but it’s still “business as usual” for “many global managers targeting investors in the U.S.”
Tags: Anti-ESG movement, Asset managers, Disrupt, Environmental, Governance, Investing, Investors, Politicians, Popular, Pushback, Red state, Social, Strategies, Targeting, Traction
Chief Investment Officer (March 26)
“The new leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to make environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing one of its top priorities. And now, the commission has launched a new webpage to provide information on ESG-related investing and agency actions…. The SEC is asking its staff to evaluate disclosure rules with an eye on facilitating the disclosure of ‘consistent, comparable, and reliable information on climate change.’”
Tags: Comparable, Consistent, Disclosure, ESG, Evaluate, Investing, Leadership, Priorities, Reliable, Rules, SEC, Webpage
Investment Week (June 24)
“The highly-publicised suspension of Neil Woodford’s flagship LF Woodford Equity Income fund has significantly damaged the UK general public’s relationship with investing…. There will ‘clearly be ramifications’ for the active management industry.”
Tags: Active management, Damage, Flagship, Fund, General public, Investing, Ramifications, Suspension, UK, Woodford
Institutional Investor (August 6)
“For the world of institutional investing, the topic of our time is none other than fees.” Most of the solutions being touted, such as 1-or-30, are anything but revolutionary. “Any magic is really just sleight-of-hand meant to distract us from realizing how low our expectations are for any meaningful improvement in the existing misaligned fee structures.” We must overcome this built-in bias and “expand the window of possible choices to include those that will be seen as utterly unthinkable by today’s standards.” For example, a “rent” system could be adopted in which “the allocator no longer pays fees to the manager for the use of its own capital and is assured of receiving the investment outcome it seeks (i.e., the negotiated rent). The manager gets the capital and potential revenue it needs to run its business.” Such a revolutionary move would place the risk directly where it belongs: on the asset manager.
Tags: 1-or-30, Allocator, Asset manager, Capital, Expectations, Fee structures, Investing, Outcome, Rent, Revenue, Revolutionary, Risk
The Economist (May 12)
SoftBank’s founder Masayoshi Son is now a contender for “the most influential person in technology.” His $100 billion Vision Fund is “gobbling up stakes in the world’s most exciting young companies…. disrupting both the industries in which it invests and other suppliers of capital…. Even if the fund ends up flopping, it will have several lasting effects on technology investing.”
Tags: Capital, Disrupting, Influential, Investing, Lasting effects, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank, Technology, Vision Fund
