Vident Financial Chief Economist Jerry Bowyer called out BlackRock’s woke CEO who appears to be trying to rebrand his woke ESG investing strategies.
In a commentary for Townhall on July 17, Bowyer discussed Blackrock CEO Larry Fink’s scheme to promote Environmental, Social, and Governance investing (ESG) and getting into Fink’s recent efforts to rebrand the reviled concept. Bowyer called out Fink’s stewardship of retirement funds: “Blackrock is a Wall Street behemoth, managing more of your pension dollars than any other company in the world. It led the way in pulling corporate America left, by pushing ESG—environmental, social and governance—investing,” Bowyer said. He added, “This approach takes the focus off of the fiduciary responsibility to put the financial performance for your retirement funds above all else and shifts it towards various social goals. The backlash has been severe.”
Bowyer added that Fink had “announced a rebranding away from ESG.” Beyond that, Bowyer discussed how Fink admitted that he was “embarrassed” by the debate over ESG, and whined that the political fringe had “weaponized” ESG.
Bowyer ripped Fink for playing the victim in a corporate culture fight he had started. Bowyer said, “Well, he’s half-right. The left used it as a weapon. The right is just defending us against that. But Mr. Fink, is the solution not obvious? Stay out of political debates and you won't find yourself ashamed of the political debates that you're in.”
State attorneys general have written to Fink to ensure that he was managing pension funds “solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries” rather than his pet causes. Meanwhile, twelve states have divested or moved to divest their pension funds from BlackRock. BlackRock reportedly lost $1.7 trillion of its clients’ money in the first half of 2022 and had to lay off five hundred employees at the beginning of this year.
As noted by Bowyer, Fink has since drastically changed his tune.
Last month, Fink panned the ESG debate saying, “‘I'm ashamed of being part of this conversation,’” before appearing to rebrand his woke investing strategies as “conscientious capitalism.”
More recently, BlackRock added the CEO of Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, to their board, which CNBC Jeff Sonefield suggested would “blur their image on the ESG front” while also casually mentioning that “the Saudis” have a trillion dollars invested in BlackRock.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on the dangers of ESG.
