![]() Skrmetti said he would advise officials in Tennessee to move slowly and cautiously if they want to pull funds out of the money manager. Other state officials are going after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink himself, including North Carolina’s treasurer, who called for Fink’s resignation because of his ESG focus.īut other Republican states are taking a more measured approach before deciding whether to pull funds from BlackRock or its peers over ESG investing concerns. Texas lawmakers grilled BlackRock executives at a hearing last week. ![]() Meanwhile, in Texas, a state Senate committee has subpoenaed BlackRock for documents over its ESG practices and how they may affect the state’s pensions. Forget going to court, money talks,” she said. “The fact that you have these treasurers that are now pulling their money out of BlackRock is really significant. The concerns over ESG investing “put a lot of pressure on the investment firms,” said Kalani. Florida has bigger plans to fight ESG investing, including new legislation next year. About $13 billion in state pension funds managed by Blackrock are at stake as the agency considers changes at a board meeting next month. We are neither,” the asset manager said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg Law.Īfter announcing Florida’s $2 billion withdrawal from BlackRock, Patronis urged the agency that oversees the state’s pension funds to remove the firm as one of its asset managers. “BlackRock has been subject to campaigns suggesting we are either ‘too progressive’ or ‘too conservative’ in how we manage our clients’ money. “And so I think what you see in the ESG movement is a lot of people wanting to reassert control over their little sliver of the economy because their perception is that there are a few people who are managing their assets who have very different social preferences to them.”įor its part, BlackRock has weathered the criticism, noting that it’s been pressured by activists across the political spectrum on topics such as fossil fuels and clean energy investments. “People are really worried that their money is being used to achieve social outcomes that they don’t want, and they feel like they don’t have any control over that,” Skrmetti said. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, told Bloomberg Law that he has heard a lot of ESG concerns from people in his state. “If a consumer calls with a complaint, they assume that there’s 5,000 others who didn’t call and have the same complaint,” she said. “I’m concerned that politics is getting involved in the finances of our states,” he told Bloomberg Law.Īs state officials hear rising public criticism of ESG investing, they’re likely to ramp up the action they take, said Lori Kalani, who co-chairs Cozen O’Connor’s state attorneys general practice. ![]() Fitzgerald, a Democrat, is leaving office in January and will be replaced by a Republican. Iowa’s treasurer, Michael Fitzgerald, said he’s received scores of letters in the past month voicing concerns about so-called “woke investing"-referring to the term Republican critics have attached to ESG. When Florida’s CFO, Jimmy Patronis, made the BlackRock announcement, he spoke about getting “the best returns possible” for taxpayers so as to more effectively fund “priorities like schools, hospitals and roads.” Such criticism that ESG investing sacrifices individuals’ investing returns to fund liberal social missions is starting to catch on with the public, state officials from both political parties told Bloomberg Law. Other states including Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri have previously said they’ll pull funds from the asset manager. ![]() ![]() has found itself on the defensive since Florida announced in early December that it would pull $2 billion of assets from the money manager-the biggest financial move by a red state with concerns about ESG. The battle over ESG investing that has enmeshed BlackRock into a Republican-led political squabble is galvanizing a grassroots, letter-writing campaign that stretches across the country.īlackRock Inc. ![]()
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