Sky Blog
Last year, major investors took unprecedented steps through engagement efforts and proxy voting to demonstrate their commitment to addressing the climate transition and board and workforce diversity and inclusion, with focus given to disclosure and reporting of key ESG metrics …
Dear CEO,
Each year I make it a priority to write to you on behalf of BlackRock’s clients, who are shareholders in your company. The majority of our clients are investing to finance retirement. Their time horizons can span decades.
On October 7, 2021, BlackRock announced that, beginning in 2022, institutional clients would have the opportunity to direct the voting of shares held by index funds. Some commentators heralded this change as “a catalyst for others in [the investment management] …
Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are the cornerstone of many Americans’ investment and retirement plans. (For simplicity, we refer to all these investments as “mutual funds.”) Collectively, investment companies such as BlackRock, Fidelity, State Street, and Vanguard hold more than …
Two years ago, the Business Roundtable (BRT) issued a “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” signed by the CEOs of 184 major U.S. corporations, that rejected shareholder primacy, declared “a fundamental commitment to all [corporate] stakeholders” and linked corporate …
As has become widely known in the past few years, the mutual-fund industry is more concentrated than ever, especially because of the growing use of index funds. Whether this is a problem and how to respond have been the topics …
As the momentum of shareholder engagement on climate-related matters continues to grow across the globe, including in Canada, these issues remain a key focus area for public companies. One of the tools that has gained prominence is the so-called “Say …
American workers are more productive than ever, but they take home the same pay they did 40 years ago. While firms have enjoyed blockbuster profits—and the U.S. gross domestic product has tripled—most American households have not shared in this increasing …
Activist investors once limited their targets to mostly smaller, less known firms. Now, though, they increasingly target large, household names like Procter & Gamble, DuPont, and Berkshire Hathaway, aiming to influence company actions, replace management, or even purchase the company.…
The Big 3 mutual-fund managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard) have amassed incredibly large public-company holdings through the array of mutual funds they oversee. As a result, they now play a pivotal role in corporate governance in many of the …
Recent developments have placed antitrust law on a collision course with corporate purpose. In a new paper, I reveal the unforeseen negative impacts of this conflict and provide a roadmap for avoiding them.
Businesses and investors are increasingly embracing …
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2020, Larry Fink – the chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock – wore a climate change-themed scarf. It featured the “warming stripes” visual, where the color …
The Big Three passive fund managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard) have roughly quadrupled their collective ownership stake in S&P 500 companies over the past two decades (Hirst and Bebchuk, 2019). This enormous increase in ownership by passively …
Over the course of 2020, market forces drove corporations and institutional investors to make expansive commitments to their purpose and social responsibility. This fueled companies in many regions to publish lengthy reports under the ESG moniker (Environmental, Social and Governance). …
In recent years, there has been a debate in the corporate world about the capabilities and incentives of institutional investors to invest in corporate stewardship – defined as monitoring, voting, and engagement – of their portfolio companies. The main focus …
Governments have tended to treat climate change as primarily an issue of environmental policy. Recent climate change-related events, ranging from hurricanes to forest fires to floods, and their devastating effects on the global economy, however, are gradually alerting regulators and …
BlackRock, an investment adviser that primarily markets and manages index funds to millions of passive investors around the globe, has become a leading shareholder activist. Based on the extremely large amount of assets it has under management ($7.3 trillion), its …
From a practical standpoint, the most significant part of the 1970 Milton Friedman essay in the New York Times was the headline: “The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase its Profits.” For a half-century, that phrase has …
This brief column will assert that three developments that seem unrelated are in fact closely related and may soon impact U.S. corporate governance with the force of a freight train. This column summarizes a longer article just posted by this …
The ever-evolving challenges facing corporate boards prompt periodic updates to a snapshot of what is expected from the board of directors of a public company—not just the legal rules, or the principles published by institutional investors and various corporate and …