Posted on 10/18/2022 10:09:42 AM PDT by george76
BlackRock’s focus on the latest Wall Street craze—environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing—has turned into a risky affair for the world’s largest asset manager, a UBS analyst recently stated.
Brennan Hawken, an analyst at the bank, downgraded the stock of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) from Buy to Neutral and slashed the stock price target from $700 to $585 over growing pushback to its ESG efforts.
“We are downgrading BLK to Neutral based on environmental pressure to earnings and risk from the firm’s ESG positioning,” he said in a note, adding that BlackRock could face increased regulatory inspection and the possibility of diminished fund management business.
“BLK’s early and energetic adoption of ESG principles in its fund management and shareholder proxy activities have positioned the firm as an ESG leader in our view. However, as performance deteriorates and political risk from ESG has increased, we believe the potential for lost fund mandates and regulatory scrutiny has recently increased.”
According to Market Beat, the average analyst rating is a “Moderate Buy,” with a price target of $776.46.
But could CEO Larry Fink witness the Wall Street titan come under pressure over sustainable investing?
BlackRock recently launched a new webpage with a focus on “setting the record straight” on its ESG investments, dispelling some of the misconceptions being spread around, and regaining control of its corporate messaging.
...
“The energy industry plays a crucial role in the economy, and, on behalf of our clients, BlackRock has invested $170 billion in U.S. public energy companies,” the company wrote. “We are also partnering with energy companies and start-ups to fund new technology and innovations that will power the global economy, now and in the future. Despite these investments, BlackRock has recently been accused of ‘boycotting’ oil and gas companies.”
The company offers a long list of ESG-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that concentrate on climate change, data privacy, accounting practices, product liability, and ethics.
GOP Uninterested in ESG Investing..
In recent weeks, a plethora of Republican officials have divested from BlackRock over its ESG policies.
Last week, Louisiana Treasurer John Schroder wrote a letter (pdf) to Fink, explaining that the state would liquidate approximately $800 million from the financial institution’s exchange-traded funds (ETFs), money market funds, and mutual funds within three months. Schroder cited BlackRock’s ESG standards that promote green energy over conventional fossil fuels.
“Your blatantly anti-fossil fuel policies would destroy Louisiana’s economy,” he said. “This divestment is necessary to protect Louisiana from actions and policies that would actively seek to hamstring our fossil fuel sector. In my opinion, your support of ESG investing is inconsistent with the best economic interests and values of Louisiana. I cannot support an institution that would deny our state the benefit of one of its most robust assets.”
South Carolina announced on Monday that the state would be divesting its roughly $200 million in BlackRock holdings by the year’s end.
“I will not allow our financial partners to undermine my fiduciary responsibility to maximize investment returns while accepting a prudent level of risk for the benefit of our citizens. It is imperative that we stand up to BlackRock and resist the pressure to simply fall into line with their leftist worldview,” Treasurer Curtis Loftis explained.
Other U.S. jurisdictions have begun to divest tens of millions of dollars in state funds from BlackRock, including Arkansas, Utah, and West Virginia. In August, Texas and 18 other states penned a letter to Fink threatening to remove state funds from these banks over BlackRock’s ESG objectives.
“Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners’ retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock’s climate agenda. The time has come for BlackRock to come clean on whether it actually values our states’ most valuable stakeholders, our current and future retirees, or risk losses even more significant than those caused by BlackRock’s quixotic climate agenda,” the letter states.
Writing in an op-ed on the Fox Business Network website, Nebraska Treasurer John Murante purported that BlackRock and other asset managers “have lost credibility on ESG investing.”
“Wall Street firms market themselves by referencing solid objects—a black rock. For firms making ESG commitments, the appropriate image would be a black box. Asset managers cannot have it both ways: either they maximize financial returns, or they push ESG and net zero,” Murante stated.
While Florida did not target BlackRock, Gov. Ron DeSantis and trustees of the State Board of Administration (SBA) approved a measure to remove ESG criteria from $186 billion state pension funds.
“Corporate power has increasingly been utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people through the perversion of financial investment priorities under the euphemistic banners of environmental, social, and corporate governance and diversity, inclusion, and equity,” the governor said in a statement in August.
But it is not only BlackRock that Republican-led states are divesting from on account of so-called responsible investing. West Virginia, for example, announced that other financial institutions would be ineligible for state banking contracts, such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
Despite the pushback from a whole host of Republican-led states, a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers argued that the demand for ESG investments outstrips supply. The study learned that nearly 90 percent of institutional investors think asset managers should be more proactive in manufacturing new ESG products. Additionally, close to 80 percent of American investors plan to bolster their allocations to ESG financial products over the next two years.
BlackRock shares were down about 2.7 percent on Friday to trade below $551. Since the beginning of the year, the firm has lost 40 percent of its market value, or approximately $55 billion.
Woke, broke, you know...the thing.
I didn’t read the article yet, but will.
ESG = Corporate Fiduciary Negligence
I hope they get sued into nonexistence over the fiduciary misconduct they have committed over their leftist ideals.
Won’t matter once the government (fascists) write some new laws that will enable this ESG crap to be forced on everyone. It’s coming.
Interesting. Maybe they aren’t as invincible as they’ve been leading people to believe.
Key quote:
“Since the beginning of the year, the firm has lost 40 percent of its market value, or approximately $55 billion.”
“We accept that our retirees will have a much lower standard of living due to reduced performance of these funds, but that is an acceptable price for social responsibility in investing. Besides, there are some fairly tasty cat foods out there if you look around.”
A Parallel, Conservative Economy Is Emerging To Compete With ‘Corporations That Hate You’..
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4101450/posts
Over in the chat forum we are talking about the coming...
Personal ESG Score
“UBS downgraded by Blackrock over poor investment analysis”.
I guess two can play at this game....
Can it be negative?
I aqm beginning to wonder if some of these companies deliberately announce they are going ‘woke’ in order to sell short and profit when their market value drops.
It’s as predictable as night follows day, and have you ever seen where the market DOES NOT take advantage of a ‘sure thing’?
Go woke, go broke.
But, it’s the people/investors/consumers who have the last laugh. People may get canceled by the woke crowd and woke companies. But, the woke people and woke corporations are getting canceled by the people.
Live and learn, but some lessons are very costly, as many of the woke are finding out.
The people are also candelling out the woke democrat policies, and come November, the cancellations will teach the woke crowd some well-deserved stinging lessons.
They know what they’re doing is not in their shareholder’s interest, which is illegal.
I’m unaware if it is legal for a corporate executive to short their own company’s stock.
Maybe someone here can chime in.
ESG means forget being a fiduciary.
Oh please make this a thing
You may be onto something. Or an alternate motivation: maybe they knew their stock prices would soon go down anyway (bull market is old, etc.) and decided to at least get brownie points from Dim control-freak regulators in the SEC for the downturn. Kind of like Warren Buffet never being regulated into the poor house because he always throws Dims a few bones (like advocating for raising taxes on the rich, etc.).
About time. Their reported policy was to deny loans to oil and gas drillers, producers, pipeline companies and refineries seeking expansion.
May they drop another 40%.
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