BlackRock CEO Larry Fink admitted Sunday that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) damaged his firm last year after pulling $2 billion in assets from BlackRock’s management.
“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” he said at the Aspen Ideas Summit, Axios reported.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has become a prominent target of the anti-woke movement. That’s because BlackRock is committed to environmental, social, and governance policies.
The firm believes weighing a company’s policies on the environment and social issues is part of its fiduciary duty. But numerous states disagree and have divested from BlackRock. As Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee said in December, they believe BlackRock has “moved from a traditional asset manager to a political action committee.”
Last December, Florida divested $2 billion in assets from BlackRock, which Fink admitted on Sunday hurt the firm.
The admission is especially ironic because, at the time, BlackRock claimed Florida’s divestment would backfire.
“As a fiduciary, everything we do is with the sole goal of driving returns for our clients. We are surprised by the Florida CFO’s decision given the strong returns BlackRock has delivered to Florida taxpayers over the last five years,” the firm said in a statement. “We are disturbed by the emerging trend of political initiatives like this that sacrifice access to high-quality investments and thereby jeopardize returns, which will ultimately hurt Florida’s citizens.”
According to Axios, Fink was later asked about his admission of shame for centralizing ESG policies — and he tried to backtrack.
“I never said I was ashamed. … I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism,” he claimed. “I’m not going to use the word ESG because it’s been misused by the far left and the far right.”
Fink himself has become the target of criticism over letters he has written emphasizing ESG policies. But on Sunday, Fink denied wading into politics.
“When I write these [investment] letters, it was never meant to be a political statement,” he said. “They were written to identify longterm issues to our longterm investors.”
Fink’s emphasis on ESG policies has been so front-and-center of his vision that it made headlines when his 2023 investment letter included zero mentions of ESG.
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