Latest news with #Fink
CNBC
17 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Insider report: The stocks with the biggest recent sales by executives include QuantumScape, BlackRock and Goldman
Company insiders at BlackRock , QuantumScape and Goldman Sachs were among those who filed some notable stock sales with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week. Moves by executives or officers of companies may be followed by investors who are trying to gain insight on what may be happening within the businesses. However, reasons for the sales may vary. The data comes from VerityData and is confirmed against the original SEC filings. These are focused on discretionary activity and exclude those where the filing explicitly says the sale was conducted pursuant to pre-planned transactions under Rule 10b5-1 . Here are some of the biggest sales from the last week: BlackRock BlackRock CEO Larry Fink sold 26,900 shares at an average price of around $1,120 a share. The total came to $30.21 million and reduced Fink's holdings by nearly 10%. In addition, director Fabrizio Freda offloaded 4,400 shares at an average price of around $1,120 apiece. That makes for a total of $4.98 million. The sale reduced Freda's holdings by 56%. Shares of the investment management company have gained about 22% over the past three months. QuantumScape Fritz Prinz, a director at QuantumScape, sold 1 million shares with an average price of $11.62 per share, bringing the sale total to $11.62 million. Shares have surged more than 185% over the past three months. QS YTD mountain QuantumScape year to date Goldman Sachs Denis Coleman, Goldman Sachs' chief financial officer, generated $6.91 million after selling 9,500 shares of the investment bank for an average price of $724.44 per share. The sale reduced Denis's holdings by nearly 30%. CEO David M. Solomon also cut back his holdings, selling about 6,600 shares at an average price of $712.31 each — bringing the total to $4.71 million. Lastly, John F.W. Rogers, executive vice president, sold around 6,000 shares at an average price of $717.39 each, totaling $4.31 million. Goldman's stock has gained 32% over the past three months. GS YTD mountain Goldman Sachs year to date ServiceTitan Byron Deeter, a director at ServiceTitan , reduced his holdings by 94% after selling roughly 31,200 shares at an average price of $112.60. The total sale came to $3.51 million. The stock has fallen about 1% over the prior three months. Jabil Steven Raymund, a director at Jabil , sold about 13,400 shares at an average price of $223.11 apiece — for a total of $3 million. The sale reduced Steven's holdings by 14%. Shares have popped 52% over the past three months. Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian netted a total of $1.97 million after selling 35,000 shares at an average price of $56.29 each. Insiders at the air carrier have sold about $6.5 million in shares in total since the beginning of July. Delta's stock has jumped 32% over the past three months. DAL YTD mountain Delta Air Lines year to date United Airlines Torbjorn Enqvist, chief operations officer with United Airlines , sold 20,000 shares at an average price of $92.23 apiece. The total sale came to $1.84 million, reducing Torbjorn's holdings by 24%. Shares have advanced about 35% over the past three months.
Business Times
a day ago
- Business
- Business Times
How reliable is the 60/40 portfolio in downturns? Adding private debt not a panacea
[SINGAPORE] A big argument in favour of an investment in private markets is that the traditional 60/40 balanced portfolio (60 per cent stocks, 40 per cent bonds) is no longer as reliable or robust as it traditionally was. The steep portfolio loss in 2022 when stocks and bonds fell at the same time – and each asset class by double digits – has likely scarred most investors. It is no coincidence that since that year, strategists and bankers have redoubled efforts to persuade investors to invest in assets that are less correlated with public markets. Institutions and private wealth advisers alike are pinning their hopes on private markets to drive not just overall portfolio returns but also dampen risk. BlackRock chairman Larry Fink in his 2025 letter wrote that the future standard portfolio may have the allocation of 50/30/20 – that is, 50 per cent stocks, 30 per cent bonds and 20 per cent in private assets such as infrastructure, real estate and private credit. 'Generations of investors have done well following (the 60/40) approach, owning a mix of the entire market rather than individual securities. But as the global financial system continues to evolve, the classic 60/40 portfolio may no longer fully represent true diversification,' he wrote. The big question dogging the 60/40 method is not so much that of the risk and return of equities, but rather of bonds. Have bonds lost their ability to diversify? It is significant that the three types of private assets Fink cites are those that come closest to bonds. Infrastructure, real estate and private credit all generate a yield. Private assets also show lower correlation with public markets. Retail investors are able to access listed infrastructure and real estate investment trusts. Private debt is currently confined to accredited investors. And, in today's environment, there may be reasons for caution in private debt, which I will touch on shortly. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Strategists are not calling for the scrapping of the 60/40 portfolio, but to enhance its diversification benefits. Still, some fund managers maintain that the 60/40 approach continues to prove its value even without private markets, and the 2022 experience was an outlier. Morningstar noted that 2022 was the single year over a 150-year period that bonds failed to provide diversification benefit in a downturn. Could it happen again? 60/40 portfolio's track record Erin Browne, Pimco managing director and portfolio manager, said that the 60/40 portfolio has proven its resiliency – not just over the past decade but over more than 30 years. Browne, based in Pimco's Newport Beach office, looks after the firm's multi-asset strategies. Pimco manages more than US$2 trillion in assets. 'Our portfolio is up by around 10 per cent year to date, and the (reference) 60/40 is up by 8 per cent. It really has proven to be a good core ballast of delivering portfolio returns over different market environments and histories. This year is no different,' she said. Pimco's data shows that since 1990, a global 60/40 portfolio has returned just 0.7 per cent less than global stocks on an annualised basis, but with 37 per cent less volatility. 'The US stock-bond correlation has gotten more negative over recent months, with the one-year correlation dropping from 0 to minus 15 per cent. This is particularly valuable in an uncertain macro environment; both stocks and bonds can benefit from a soft landing amid central bank rate cuts,' she added. 'If growth deteriorates faster than expected, high-quality bonds provide a ballast. Finally, the long-term track record and easy-to-understand benefits of a 60/40 allocation allows investors to stay invested rather than attempt to time the market, which typically causes underperformance.' Browne said inflows into Pimco's multi-asset offerings are not just from retirement savers, but also more broadly from investors looking to build a 'strong, stable bellwether' as their core portfolio. 'Flows are really coming from investors looking to create the core of their asset allocation strategy, where they're able to participate in continued upside in equities, and also have some diversification.' She believes volatility is likely to be elevated given the geopolitical and macroeconomic shifts, from a 'unique unipolar world' to a multi-polar world, and from global cooperation to fragmentation. 'There will be friction in that change… Growth is also slowing on a global basis, and that creates pockets for disruption within global markets and equities, which creates more volatility.' Morningstar research found that the poor performance of the 60/40 portfolio in 2022 was due to a painful bear market in bonds that actually began around 2020. In its analysis of how the 60/40 portfolio performed over 150 years, it found that the crash of the 2020s was the only one where the decline of the 60/40 portfolio was more painful than that of an all-stock portfolio. That is, while the deepest drawdown of the 60/40 portfolio was shallower than the all-equity portfolio, it has taken the 60/40 portfolio longer to recover. In the 2020s, the downturn in equities – brought on by the Ukraine war, higher inflation and supply shortages – coincided with a bear market in bonds. 'While the stock market recovered to its previous high in September 2024, the bond market has not yet fully emerged from underwater. This decline was so severe that it prevented the 60/40 portfolio from returning to its previous high until June 2025 – marking the only time in the past 150 years that the 60/40 portfolio experienced more pain than the stock market,' it said. 'Nonetheless, even in this once-in-150-years bond bear market, the depth of the decline experienced by a 60/40 portfolio was less than that of either the stock market or the bond market alone.' Pimco's Browne argued that the starting point of bond yields is key for an investor. 'I don't think fixed income as a risk diversifier is dead. There's real potential for fixed income to continue to deliver not only on income return but also diversification,' she noted. 'In 2020 inflation ran very high, and the starting points of yields were exceptionally low in a negative or zero-rate environment. But where we are today is quite different. The starting point of yields today provides a really nice cushion to protect portfolios in risk-off events, with 10-year yields exceeding 4 per cent. Yields tend to be very highly correlated with the expected return of the asset over the next five years.' Caution on private credit What about private credit as a bond proxy? Despite an attractive yield, it is not a panacea for returns or lower risk. There is also reason for caution when almost every private banker or sales person trots out private debt offerings. According to an article in the Financial Times, the GIC itself is cautious as the asset class is untested in a major credit default cycle. GIC chief investment officer Bryan Yeo reportedly said the investment company is 'raising the bar in terms of further deployment in the private credit space', adding: 'We're now at a part of the cycle where we feel that spreads are a lot tighter, and valuations are also higher.' Pimco is wary as well. It noted in its mid-year report that credit spreads remained tight relative to historic averages despite signs of 'elevated secular recession potential', which reflects some complacency in public and private credit markets. Private credit, it said, is vulnerable to broad risk asset repricing due to its 'large allocations' into technology and artificial intelligence disruptors. 'Amid limited fiscal space, a genuine credit default cycle – unlike the recent 'buy the dip' era – may unfold for the first time in years, catching many investors unprepared… We express caution in areas of private corporate credit where capital formation has outpaced investable opportunities, leading to potential disappointment.'
Observer
6 days ago
- Business
- Observer
For investors, UK is now ‘an attractive place to be'
The chief executive of James Henderson — a British-American global asset management group headquartered in London — Ali Dibadj, has said international investors are 'starting to take notice' of investment opportunities in the UK, adding to the growing chorus of senior finance executives who are bullish about British assets. The company offers a range of financial products to individuals, intermediary advisors and institutional investors globally, under the trade name Janus Henderson — the groups holding company. 'There is an enormous opportunity, not just for investors to invest in the UK, but to open up the UK to investors around the world'. Dibadj said. 'The UK has a stable political backdrop and has solid foundations for growth — a UK consumer that is in real wage growth and has built up savings since Covid, businesses that have been conservative in their borrowings and banks that have re-built their balance sheets since the global financial crisis'. Dibadj, who joined Janus Henderson in 2022 from Alliance Bernstein, added that a likely lower interest rate environment in the UK and a stock market that trades at a 'significant valuation discount' to those elsewhere in the world were among other reasons to be optimistic. 'A stable political backdrop and a modestly growing economy at a very reasonable valuation is a solid place to be', said the 50-year-old. 'International investors are starting to take notice and there has been an uptick in inflows to UK equities from overseas'. UK-focused funds have posted considerable outflows following Brexit and several bouts of political upheaval, but the pace of withdrawals has slowed in recent months. Data from Calastone showed net outflows of £449m from UK equity funds in May were down to half the monthly average for the past three years. However, equity funds have only recorded one month of positive flows in the past four years. New York-based Dibadj is the latest high-profile investment executive to single out potential investment opportunities in the UK. In May, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that the world's largest asset manager had been increasing investment in 'undervalued' UK assets. Fink said the $11.6m asset manager had added to its UK positions 'across the board' and claimed some of the negativity shown towards British companies 'was probably not warranted'. 'I have more confidence in the UK economy today than I did a year ago', Fink said. The 72-year-old pointed to the growth agenda fostered by the UK government. He highlighted in particular that the Competition and Markets Authority has sped up its decision-making. 'I don't know what's changed it but it's a good change', Fink said. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon also recently backed the government's approach. He told Financial Times in April that 'there's much to like' about Labour's pro-growth agenda. Other investment leaders are pointing to renewed interest in European assets amidst uncertainty following the introduction of trade tariffs by US president Donald Trump. Growth minded: Dibadj praised the UK government for 'real conviction' in pushing through market reforms that aim to spur growth and investment, such as the recent Mansion House Accord. This saw several of the UK's largest pension providers commit to allocating at least 10 per cent of their defined contribution assets to private markets by 2030. At least half of those asset will go to investments in the UK. 'There is a growth-minded government that has shown it will take action, a catalyst to kick start investment,' said Dibadj. 'That, combined with the opportunity that existing valuations present, are what makes the UK such an attractive proposition moving forward'.
Herald Sun
19-07-2025
- Herald Sun
Finks v Comanchero: Gang recruitment war sparks chaos in Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News. The rival Finks and Comanchero bikie gangs are locked in a bitter Melbourne power struggle. A wave of fires in recent months which have cost millions of dollars is suspected of being linked to conflict between the clubs. The Herald Sun has been told one theory is that aggressive Fink recruitment of Comanchero members is behind the friction. The practice, known as 'patching-over', is regarded as a provocative move in the outlaw motorcycle gang world. In the past, it has been carried-out without incident in cases where the club doing the patching has vastly more strength than its rival. But the Finks and Comanchero are strong well-established gangs with money and muscle behind them. Underworld sources say a number of suburban businesses have gone up in flames in the tit-for-tat arsons of recent months. Both clubs are regarded as being in Australia's 'big six' outlaw motorcycle gangs, OMCGs. The Comanchero have been hit hard in recent years by prosecutions of some high-ranked members, particularly in fallout from the sprawling Ironside police operation. A number of senior members have been charged and some valued middle-ranking figures have departed on bad terms. But they remain potent and are aligned with exiled crime strongman Kazem Hamad and another shadowy gangland figure operating from offshore. Long-time office-bearer and businessman Bemir Saracevic is still influential in the organisation. Prominent figure Tarek Zahed left Melbourne in 2022 and was shot later that year in a Sydney ambush which claimed the life of his brother Omar. Zahed has been expected to be headed back to Victoria this year after his release from a NSW prison last Christmas. The Comanchero clubhouse at Clyde North was firebombed last month though the motive is not publicly known. The Finks are an expansionist club with strong representation in the outer suburbs and parts of country Victoria. They were on the wrong end of a patch-over in 2013 when many of their members were forced into the Mongols, leading to lingering bad blood which had dire consequences in 2019. Senior Fink Sione Hokafonu was shot late at night in that year outside the Fountain Gate Hotel following an altercation with a man in Mongol gear. Police believe the near-fatal shooting of Mongol Rocco Curra at Bulleen later that year was fallout from that incident. Investigators suspect a Finks member may have been the intended target of an ambush by two Mongols in which innocent fruiterer Paul Virgona was fatally wounded in November of that year. Koshan Radford is believed to be still at the helm of the Finks. Former Comanchero and Mongol Mark Balsillie came on board last year and is one of the club's most senior figures. A group of Finks — among them Hokafonu and Jesse Bonnici — were charged last year after allegedly riding their motorcycles along Southbank Promenade. Counts of reckless conduct endangering serious injury and dangerous driving were later dismissed. A number of members have been previously implicated in illicit tobacco sector arsons and standover work. Murat Shomshe was recently jailed for lighting up tobacco shops at Moe and Croydon in late-2023.
Atlantic
18-07-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
How the Right Is Waging War on Climate-Conscious Investing
In January 2020, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock—the world's largest asset-management firm—released his annual letter to corporate executives. The letters had become something of a tradition: part investor missive, part State of the Union, dispatched each year from the top of the financial world. This one struck a tone of alarm that would reverberate far beyond Wall Street. 'Climate change has become a defining factor in companies' long-term prospects,' Fink warned. 'We are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.' He said that BlackRock would be 'increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress' on sustainability. The message signaled the degree to which a once-obscure investing philosophy known as ESG—short for 'environmental, social, and governance'—had become a boardroom priority. For a moment, it looked like corporate America would weigh carbon emissions alongside profits. More major companies soon announced climate goals and promised new standards of accountability. BlackRock helped lead an effort to elect sustainability advocates to the board of ExxonMobil. A consensus seemed to be forming: Business could be a force for good, and markets might even help save the planet. Now, just five years later, that consensus is crumbling. BP is pulling back on a commitment to invest in renewables—and is reportedly expanding plans for drilling. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have scaled back their plastic-reduction pledges. Major banks, such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, are hedging their climate bets and investing heavily in fossil-fuel companies. Asset-management firms that joined BlackRock in embracing ESG—including Vanguard and State Street—have also backed off. And Fink's 2025 letter to investors does not even mention the word climate. James Surowiecki: The hottest trend in investing is mostly a sham 'This further exacerbates the problem of slow-walking climate action at a time when the temperature records are being broken and devastating weather events are accelerating,' Richard Brooks, the climate finance director for an international environmental-advocacy organization that focuses in part on corporate contributions to climate change, told us. This global retreat has been particularly acute in the United States, where political resistance to ESG has grown into an organized countermovement. The issue is now a fixture in partisan attack ads, Republican statehouse legislation, and right-wing media. The forces arrayed against ESG say they are just getting started. In January, a group of present and former Republican state officials gathered at a posh resort in Sea Island, Georgia, together with conservative leaders, for a two-day lesson in how to dismantle corporate America's most ambitious response to climate change. At the Cloister, with its golf courses, tennis courts, and beaches, ESG was denounced as a sinister force undermining free markets and democracy. 'I would hope everyone here is pretty much committed to destroying ESG,' said Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers' Research, the organization that has led the fight. His group, he said, had spent $5 million running ads 'educating consumers' about the dangers of ESG. Hild spread a similar message at other events this spring, according to transcripts of his remarks that we obtained. 'ESG is when they use their market share to push a far-left agenda, without ever having to go to voters, without any electoral accountability,' said Hild at a March meeting of state activists. 'This is not the free market operating. This is a cartel. This is a mafia.' At its core, ESG investing means integrating nonfinancial factors—such as climate risk, carbon emissions, pollution, and corporate governance—into investment decisions, with the idea that these issues could materially affect long-term performance. Firms that offer ESG funds screen out companies that don't meet a set of criteria for climate protection, and pitch their products to investors as climate-friendly alternatives to conventional funds. But in the eyes of its critics, ESG investing undermines democratic governance, imposes political priorities through the financial system, and breaches the independence of state financial officers to seek maximum return on investments. 'By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda,' Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in 2023 when he introduced legislation prohibiting the use of ESG investment by Florida pension and other state funds. That narrative has taken hold with a wide swath of Republican leaders. Donald Trump attacked ESG on the campaign trail last year, and in an April 8 executive order, the president said that state-level climate-emissions and ESG laws 'are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration's objective to unleash American energy. They should not stand.' The roots of ESG can be traced to faith-based investing of the 18th century, when some religious denominations sought to avoid investment in corporations that promoted trading enslaved people. In the 20th century, the movement called 'socially responsible investing' gained momentum during the civil-rights era and, later, in connection with opposition to apartheid in South Africa. The term ESG was formally coined in a 2004 report by the United Nations Global Compact titled 'Who Cares Wins,' which argued that better corporate integration of environmental, social, and governance factors could lead to more-sustainable markets and better outcomes around the globe. ESG investing grew in the 2010s as the public grew more concerned about diversity, the environment, and executive pay. Major asset managers such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street began offering ESG products, and companies competed to establish metrics to track compliance. As the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock played an especially influential role. Because there was no single established metric for meeting climate goals, critics on the left complained that ESG encouraged greenwashing, in which companies claim to be making environmental progress without making an actual commitment. But even critics were forced to concede that ESG brought about increased transparency. In 2018, 34 percent of publicly traded global companies disclosed greenhouse-gas-emission details. By 2023, that share had risen to 63 percent, an increase generally attributable to ESG efforts, according to R. Paul Herman, the founder and CEO of HIP Investor Inc. Although many asset managers noted the difficulties of measuring greenhouse-gas emissions, they embraced ESG as part of their long-term management strategy—and trillions of dollars flowed to them. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, global ESG-fund assets reached around $30 trillion in 2022. The analytics firm forecast in February 2024 that global ESG assets would surpass $40 trillion by 2030. Expectations for ESG have now fallen off dramatically—and Hild and his three colleagues at Consumers' Research can claim much of the credit. At seminars such as the one at Sea Island, Hild and his allies armed a network of Republican state attorneys general, state treasurers, and comptrollers with legal and political ammunition. The key funders of such efforts include fossil-fuel-industry executives and Leonard Leo, who is best known for his leadership of the Federalist Society. In recent years, Leo has moved beyond his focus on transforming America's courts, vowing in videotaped remarks in 2023 to take on 'wokeism in the corporate environment, in the educational environment,' biased media, and 'entertainment that is really corrupting our youth.' Beginning in 2021, Leo and his team injected cash into a long-dormant organization that they would use to fight ESG: Consumers' Research. A spokesperson for Leo told us that 'woke companies are defrauding their consumers and poisoning our culture, and Leonard Leo is proud to support Will Hild and Consumers' Research as they crush liberal dominance in those woke companies and hold them accountable.' The organization found a receptive audience among Republican state officials eager for a road map to combatting ESG. The group emphasized using leverage that states possess through their management of pension funds to punish investment firms that had signed on to boycott oil and gas companies. Zoë Schlanger: The climate can't afford another Trump presidency Republican attorneys general from a few fossil-fuel-dependent states, such as Texas and West Virginia, began in 2021 to investigate whether investments tied to ESG guidelines violated state laws. They sent letters of inquiry to major firms such as BlackRock and Vanguard, questioning whether their ESG practices were legally compatible with states' fiduciary obligations, especially concerning pension funds. That same year, Texas enacted Senate Bill 13, which requires state pension systems and other state endowments to divest from financial institutions seen as hostile to the oil and gas industry. Under that law, the state attorney general's office placed more than 370 investment firms on a blacklist—including BlackRock and several divisions of major banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. The following year, the offensive intensified. A coalition of 19 Republican attorneys general sent a joint letter to Fink, the BlackRock CEO, accusing the company of putting climate goals ahead of financial returns and pressuring corporations to align with international climate treaties such as the Paris Agreement. 'BlackRock appears to use the hard-earned money of our states' citizens to circumvent the best possible return on investment,' the letter warned. It cited proxy-voting strategies and coordination with groups such as the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative as potential legal overreach. Since 2022, 23 Republican state attorneys general have opened investigations into ESG-focused investment firms. Several of those officials had help from an Arizona-based private firm, Fusion Law, which received $4.5 million from Consumers' Research in its first two years of existence. One of the firm's founders, Paul Watkins, is a former Arizona civil-litigation chief in the state's attorney general's office—and was also a legal fellow at Consumers' Research. 'Paul Watkins and Fusion Law have been essential in helping to unravel and document the inner workings of ESG,' Hild told us. The firm has had contracts to work on ESG-related issues with attorneys general in Tennessee and Utah. Watkins has been a featured speaker at Consumers' Research events, including the gathering in January. Recently, state-level investigators began probing the question of whether environmental groups, asset managers, and shareholder-advocacy organizations were engaged in collusion, using ESG to restrain trade in fossil-fuel companies, in violation of antitrust laws. The opposition of red-state officials has chilled discussion of sustainable investments at institutional-investor meetings, according to participants, despite accusations of hypocrisy from Democratic officials in blue states. Brad Lander, New York City's comptroller, told us that Republicans are distorting investment decisions by putting their thumb on the scale against ESG. 'These are people who once upon a time believed in free markets,' Lander, a Democrat, told us. 'I'm not telling anyone how to invest. I just don't want them to tell me.' Evidence suggests that the Republican push has been costly to taxpayers. A study by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business found that the Texas law banning municipalities from doing business with banks that have ESG policies reduced the competition for borrowing—and generated a potential cost of up to $532 million in extra interest per year. Nonetheless, the anti-ESG movement is spreading: What began largely as a state-level attack has now blossomed on Capitol Hill. In mid-2023, House Republicans, led by Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, launched a wide-ranging probe into ESG practices. More than 60 entities, including environmental groups, corporations, and financial institutions, were asked to provide information on alleged coordination aimed at limiting fossil-fuel investment. The committee's interim staff report, released last year, accused ESG advocates of forming a 'climate cartel' that sought to 'impose left-wing environmental, social, and governance goals' through coordinated pressure campaigns. The report alleged that such efforts amounted to collusion in restraint of trade. During his inquiry, Jordan issued waves of subpoenas targeting organizations such as Ceres, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and the shareholder-advocacy nonprofit As You Sow. Targets of the inquiry were required to turn over more than 100,000 pages of email and other communications as the committee investigated allegations of antitrust violations and collusion in recommending sustainable-investment options. 'The investigation was abusive, and it was chilling,' said Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel of As You Sow, who testified for more than eight hours before Jordan's panel last year. 'You cannot defy the reality of climate change and the scientific imperative of acting,' said Mindy Lubber, the president and CEO of the pro-sustainability nonprofit group Ceres, which has been active in prodding companies into taking part in ESG measures. But, she said, 'everybody is afraid of the bull's-eyes on their backs.' Annie Lowrey: If you're worried about the climate, move your money Jordan's inquiry is continuing this year, with a focus on possible antitrust violations by environmental organizations and asset managers and advisors. The pressure is working as intended. After Jordan launched his inquiry, many high-profile firms exited the Climate Action 100+ initiative. Coalitions of financial institutions that once committed to sustainable investing have collapsed. Several U.S. banks—including JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo—withdrew from an influential bankers' climate coalition, citing legal risk and political pressure. BlackRock and Vanguard pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, leading that group to halt operations. 'Our memberships in some of these organizations have caused confusion regarding BlackRock's practices and subjected us to legal inquiries from various public officials,' the company said in a letter to clients. 'BlackRock's active portfolio managers continue to assess material climate-related risks, alongside other investment risks, in delivering for clients.' The company, which declined our request to interview Fink, referred us to other official statements including one noting that 'BlackRock's sustainable and transition investing platform is driven by the needs of our clients and our continued investment conviction that the energy transition is a mega force shaping economies and markets.' Other asset managers issued similar statements, noting that they would still offer green-investment options. But interest in ESG funds has declined substantially. U.S. investment funds specializing in climate experienced net inflows of $70 billion in 2021—but by 2023, the tide had reversed, with money flowing out of the funds faster than it was coming in. Last year, net outflows amounted to $19.6 billion, with the trend continuing into the first quarter of 2025, according to Morningstar Analytics. Proxy initiatives from shareholders interested in sustainable investing have also declined, another casualty of the war against ESG. 'This has been a silent spring,' William Patterson, a former director for investment for the AFL-CIO who tracks climate-related shareholder action, told us. 'Investor initiatives on climate, which attained broad shareholder support in the past, are barely present' at investor meetings this year. Meanwhile, the number of anti-ESG proxy proposals more than quadrupled from 2021 to 2024. As of February, a fifth of all shareholder proposals submitted were filed by anti-ESG groups. Despite the precipitous decline of ESG investing, its detractors are not ready to declare victory. Consumers' Research, for one, is committed to pressing on. 'ESG is in retreat, but it is not defeated yet,' Hild told us. 'We have a long way to go before people get rid of it.' Proponents are not relenting either, and are looking forward to a moment when the political winds shift once more. 'What I hear, especially in the U.S., is twofold,' said Daniel Klier, the chief executive of the advisory firm South Pole. 'One message is 'Keep your head down,' but also that climate change will not go away—and we need to prepare for the decades to come and not just in the next four years.'
