![]() ![]() ![]() We are committed to continually evolving this offering. While some pension funds have long been actively involved in corporate governance, we’re working to make that easier and more efficient for a larger number of investors. It’s clear there are investors who don’t want to sit on the sidelines they have a view on corporate governance, and they want a meaningful way to express those views. To date, clients representing 25% of the $1.8 trillion in eligible assets are enrolled in Voting Choice, and interest is only accelerating: The number of clients interested in enrolling has doubled since May. This includes all the public and private pension plan assets we manage in the United States, as well as retirement plans serving more than 60 million people around the world. Nearly half of all our index equity assets under management are now eligible for Voting Choice. We’ve seen tremendous interest from our clients since launching a year ago. And, if widely adopted, it can enhance corporate governance by injecting important new voices into shareholder democracy. One year after its launch, I am convinced that Voting Choice has the power to transform the relationship between asset owners and companies. At BlackRock, we’re doing this through what we call Voting Choice: a capability that leverages technology and innovation to give our clients – who are the true owners of the assets we manage – the option to engage much more directly in proxy voting. Today, we believe that choice can and should extend, not just to the strategies in which clients invest, but also to how clients engage in the governance of companies their money is ultimately invested in. In the decades since, more and more people have entrusted BlackRock to manage their investments, in large part because we offer more choice than any other firm in our industry. We wanted to offer a range of choices – and use technology and global insights – to help clients meet their unique investment goals: whether that’s a pension plan serving teachers and firefighters or an individual investor saving for retirement and a child’s education. Thirty-four years ago, when my seven partners and I founded BlackRock, our goal was to build an asset management firm centered on meeting the needs of our clients. Critics began to call it “ woke capitalism.Dear BlackRock clients and corporate CEOs, Then, last year, the situation was made worse when Fink’s annual letter to CEOs echoed his past statements about sustainability, and added a new note about “stakeholder capitalism”-a policy of serving not only shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the public. They’re trying to demonize issues.”įink was first linked with ESG investing back in 2020, when he warned that climate change was fundamentally reshaping finance in his annual letter to CEOs and argued that executives needed to “reallocate their capital into sustainable strategies.” The stance drew the ire of a coalition of over 75 conservative leaders and elected officials who signed a letter to the CEO asking him “reconsider” the announcement. “And for the first time in my professional career, attacks are now personal. “It’s hard-because it’s not business anymore, they’re doing it in a personal way,” he told Bloomberg. Davos on Tuesday, Fink said that he is now trying to “address the misconceptions” about his company’s policies-and something bad has happened to the discourse along the way. It’s like giving “wheatgrass to a cancer patient,” Tariq Fancy, BlackRock’s former chief investment officer for sustainable investing, told the Financial Times in 2021. Critics on the left have always viewed Fink’s ESG stance with skepticism as well, with some arguing that the whole ESG industry is just a market tactic-or outright destructive.
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