BlackRock

ESG, Larry Fink, and Other Peoples’ Money

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

This op-ed by NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty appears today on Real Clear Markets:

Last week, Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies, lost a critical board fight with Engine No.1, a “woke” small investor group. The win was predictably spun by the mainstream media as a David vs. Goliath story as well as a milestone moment for a new type of altruistic Environmental, Social and Governance investor.

The truth, however, is more cynical than heroic. Among other things, this is a story of how a billionaire like Larry Fink, a true Wolf of Wall Street, uses other people’s money to simultaneously camouflage his checkered past and help promote himself as an elder statesman of the markets, a beneficent oligarch with a penchant for saving the planet. 

The popular media narrative is that this latest Exxon shareholder campaign was conducted by a small group … Read More ➡

As China is Called Out Over Genocide, BlackRock Sees a Business Opportunity

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

At a time when many nations in the West — including the United States — are condemning China for human rights abuses and genocide against the Muslim Uyghurs, investment firm BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink are doubling down on their business partnership with the communist government.

From Pensions & Investments:

Bing Ji was named general manager of BlackRock’s newly launched wealth management joint venture in Shanghai, BlackRock CCB Wealth Management, a spokeswoman confirmed Friday…

On Wednesday, BlackRock said that the joint venture it unveiled last August with a subsidiary of China Construction Bank and Singapore investment company Temasek had garnered regulatory approval to start operations…

BlackRock said it holds a majority 50.1% stake in BlackRock CCB Wealth Management. CCB Wealth Management Co., a wholly owned unit of China Construction Bank, has 40% and Temasek holds the remaining 9.9%.

The joint venture “will draw on BlackRock’s

… Read More ➡

Now BlackRock CEO Fink Wants to Tell Georgia How to Run Elections

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

Not content to throw his weight around to transform the entire energy industry, Larry Fink has now turned his attention to altering the political system.

The CEO of top finance firm BlackRock, which reportedly controls more than $9 trillion in assets, has developed a reputation for progressive agenda pressure tactics against the companies they invest in – most recognizably on the issue of climate change, but also on social issues related to race and gender. Fink likes to write open letters to CEOs and board members in which he prods and threatens their corporations to do things like “divest” from fossil fuels (even if that is their core business) and report hypothetical “risks” from the effects of global warming. Those who fail to comply can find BlackRock potentially voting against renewal of their directorships, or worse.

But Fink is proving to be just another two-bit hypocrite … Read More ➡

BlackRock’s Fink is a Bully, Except When It Comes to China

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

Larry Fink’s letter to CEOs, released in late January, is so 2021 – demanding fealty to a progressive agenda under threat of being ostracized and/or canceled.

Since 2018, the BlackRock chairman’s missive has become an eagerly anticipated annual pontification for Wall Street elitists and political progressives. The lifelong Democrat – who once received a “corporate citizenship” award named for Democrat racist President Woodrow Wilson – now has a new Democrat U.S. President installed that he can work with. Indeed, BlackRock alumni are populating the economic team within the Biden administration.

As the president and his allies in the newly Democrat-controlled Congress eagerly start to impose their new power on the corporate world – the stoppage of the Keystone XL pipeline construction is just the first job-killing step – they will need allies to coerce compliance under threat of economic pain.

Fink appears to be … Read More ➡

Will BlackRock Thwart Progress on China Human Rights?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Antony Blinken/PHOTO: US Embassy Moldova (CC)

BlackRock, the world’s biggest money manager, has successfully placed executives from its own ranks in key positions on President Joe Biden’s economic team.

Considering the firm’s clear emphasis on progressive policies in investment decisions – called Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) – it doesn’t surprise that its alumni would be among the economic decision-makers at the White House.

The BlackRock veterans are:

  • Mike Pyle, who will be Vice President Kamala Harris’s chief economic adviser. He was BlackRock’s Global Chief Investment Strategist after a stint in the Obama administration.
  • Brian Deese, who will be director of the National Economic Council. He was previously deputy director and also a senior advisor to Obama. For BlackRock, he was global head of sustainable investing.
  • Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, who will be deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, if he is confirmed by the Senate. He was Obama’s senior
… Read More ➡

BlackRock Pushes Left Wing Politics; Ignores China

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

CEO Larry Fink is escalating his leftist political agenda influence, exerted through his mega-investment firm BlackRock, to outright intimidation.

It began gently almost three years ago, with Fink urging several corporate CEOs in a letter to make “a positive contribution to society” beyond generating profit for shareholders, to “serve a social purpose.” The initiatives pressed most urgently addressed climate change risk and disclosure, and diversity initiatives.

The tone has gone from pleadings to threats, as outlined in BlackRock’s “2021 Stewardship Expectations,” issued a couple of weeks ago in advance of corporate annual meetings that will be held in the coming months. As reported by investment equity law firm Ropes & Gray, BlackRock has intensified its demands in pursuit of compliance with its priorities.

Among BlackRock’s plans:

  • “Broadening the universe of focus companies – from 440 to more than 1,000 – that it
… Read More ➡

Larry Fink’s Appeasement of Climate Activists is Failing

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

For all the boasts and claims that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has made in recent years about the need for corporate “accountability” with regard to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities, and that they are a better long-term investment prospect, he has consistently fallen short in the eyes of experts who evaluate those things.

First there was the academic study released in August that found that despite claims to the contrary by major financial firms – including BlackRock – that ESG factors did notinoculate investors against the stock market downturn that was attributed to the COVID crash of the global economy, nor did sustainability priorities aid in the subsequent limited recovery.

And now it turns out that one of BlackRock’s non-profiting investment priorities ballyhooed by Fink – climate change – is not all he cracks it up to be.

A report released last month by … Read More ➡

American Universities Urged to Divest From China

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Donald Trump & Xi Jinping/IMAGE: YouTube

In another broadside against the People’s Republic of China, a top official in President Trump’s State Department last month urged American universities to divest their endowments from Chinese-owned corporations; to closely monitor or shut down on-campus activities that promote Chinese propaganda; and to protect research centers from Chinese theft of intellectual property.

This followed the President’s attacks on the Chinese communists for releasing and then covering up the threat from the Wuhan coronavirus. Also his trade war, with huge tariffs on China’s exporters, has caused the Far East nation great pain.

And regarding investments, a special working group of the administration’s top financial regulators, led by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, recommended the Securities and Exchange Commission impose stronger transparency rules for foreign companies that are listed on American exchanges. The step was primarily directed at China, whose companies’ financial disclosures are … Read More ➡

Study Debunks BlackRock Claims that ESG Funds Did Better During COVID

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink

So-called environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities, as applied to investment principles, have seen a massive influx of cash during the COVID-19 pandemic – so much so that influential financial firm leaders have celebrated them as better performers than normal “make-a-profit” funds.

But is that really true?

Mega-firm BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink have called greater attention to ESG, beginning early in 2018 with a letter to more than 1,000 publicly traded companies urging them to elevate issues such as climate change and diversity higher in their considerations as they go about their business.

“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

CNBC reported earlier this month that the amount of assets in funds that follow ESG … Read More ➡

Chinese Companies Get Scrutiny— But Not From BlackRock

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Steve Mnuchin/IMAGE: YouTube

Pressure continues to increase on Chinese corporations that are listed on American stock exchanges, to provide greater transparency about their ownership and operations.

Following the U.S. Senate’s passage (by unanimous consent) in May of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, a special panel of top government financial regulators issued a report last week that also called for tougher rules in order for “non-cooperative” foreign companies to be allowed to be listed in the United States. The goal is to provide greater protection for investors in those companies, to meet minimal audit and transparency standards so that potential risks are better understood.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets specifically scrutinized the risks to investors posed by the Chinese government’s failure to allow access to the books of companies listed in the U.S.  The group urged the Securities and Exchange Commission take steps to strengthen the listing standards.… Read More ➡