Sky Blog
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” This maxim from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel, The Leopard, captures the central insight of our new article. In the novel, a Sicilian aristocrat watches …
For over a decade, the narrative of corporate governance was focused on the concentration of power. The “Big Three”asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – along with the two dominant proxy advisers, ISS and Glass Lewis, were seen …
Over the last few decades, large asset managers have loomed over U.S. equity markets. Their prominence has fueled a lively debate about the effects of “asset manager capitalism” on a variety of issues, including corporate governance and stewardship, market competition, …
On September 15, 2025, Elon Musk filed a disclosure with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicating that he had acquired approximately 2.57 million shares of Tesla Inc. in open-market transactions on September 12, at a cost of nearly …
Robust shareholder engagement continues to be a critical component of corporate governance, as well as a key element of shareholder activism preparedness. Proactively maintaining a dialogue with the company’s largest shareholders allows the company to establish credibility, lay out its …
In recent years, legal scholars and economists have debated whether the rise of “common ownership” by large institutional investors dampens competition. The concern is that when asset managers such as the Big Three – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – …
In the world of startups, founders are often elevated to near mythical status – the force poised to disrupt entire industries. This adulation can grant founders extraordinary latitude in corporate control, especially in innovative and unregulated sectors like tech or …
The District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently ruled that a company breached its fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) for permitting BlackRock’s inclusion as an investment manager of its employees’ retirement …
Institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, and exchange traded funds (ETFs) play a prominent role in today’s economy. According to the CFA Institute, institutional investors now hold over $70 trillion in investable assets and thus wield immense influence …
In the corporate governance landscape, the influence of passive index funds and common ownership has become a focus of scholarly and public debate. As the largest asset management firms in the world, the Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street …
In recent years, one of the most significant developments in corporate governance has been the adoption and expansion of voting choice programs by the largest institutional investors. Such changes have come in response to growing scrutiny and pressure from asset …
Tesla confronted an enormous challenge in winning support for the two controversial proposals at the 2024 Tesla annual meeting: to ratify CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay plan and to redomicile from Delaware to Texas. We thought it would take an …
The growth and concentration of the investment management industry has captivated the scholarly community. Recent scholarship has focused on the “Big Three” investment managers — Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street Global Advisors — and charted their rapid accumulation of assets …
The convergence of environmental urgency and the rising power of “universal owners” – asset managers with broad-based portfolios, such as BlackRock – has kindled the hope among academics and activists that universal owners will leverage their power to push companies …
Large asset managers play an outsized role in the corporate governance of the largest U.S. public firms. The Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street) collectively manage trillions of dollars of assets and own about a fifth of the average …
With (minority) shares now concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of institutions, institutional investors are expected to play an ever-increasing role in the governance of listed companies worldwide. However, it is uncertain whether institutional investors can actually …
Sign up for an investment account, and you will likely be presented with a dizzying range of investment products. The industry caters to investors with different risk appetites, savings pots, time horizons, ESG outlooks, religious commitments, and more. In some …
In view of the attacks on “woke” corporations, ongoing legislative opposition to the consideration by investors and corporations of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, legal challenges to elements of ESG itself (notably, initiatives designed to further diversity, equity and …
On March 7, 2017, the eve of International Women’s Day, State Street Global Advisors initiated its “Fearless Girl” campaign, an effort to increase the number of female directors on the boards of its portfolio companies.[1]According to State Street, …
The tremendous growth of institutional investors, particularly large passive funds, has drawn attention to their role in corporate governance. Major investment advisers such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are among the largest shareholders in many publicly traded firms and …