Wealth management firm BlackRock is reportedly tripling its security expenditures for its CEO Larry Fink following a year of bad press around his environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) activism.
According to a proxy statemen filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier in April, BlackRock spent $563,513 to “upgrade the home security systems” for Fink’s homes in 2023, and spent $216,837 on his personal bodyguards.
BlackRock had first set up security funds for Fink and the firm’s president Robert Kapito in 2022.
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As Valuetainment reported earlier this month, BlackRock received a Cease and Desist Order from the Mississippi Secretary of State for allegedly defrauding clients with its ESG funds.
The Order claims BlackRock has repeatedly made “untrue statements of material fact” to investors, especially in omitting the extent to which ESG philosophy influences its investment portfolios. It argues that BlackRock’s self-billed “non-ESG funds” are misleading, as the company admits to having “committed to use all assets under management to advance the environmental agenda of reducing carbon emissions to ‘net zero.’” Therefore, these funds are manifestly not “managed for the sole purpose of investors’ financial return without regard to ESG criteria.”
And in late March, the state of Texas decided to revoke its $8.5 billion investment partnership with wealth management firm BlackRock on the grounds that its ESG advocacy is effectively a boycott against energy companies and is therefore detrimental to the Texan economy. “BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for our PSF [Texas Permanent School Fund],” said Chair of the Texas State Board of Education Aaron Kinsey.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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