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And although the stock market recovery bodes well for growth as the pandemic subsides, the current situation remains one of economic devastation, with unemployment severely elevated, small businesses shuttering daily, and families around the world struggling to pay rent and buy food. While some industries, particularly those that depend on people congregating in person, have suffered, others have flourished. It sparked the most severe global economic contraction since the Great Depression and the sharpest fall off in equity markets since 1987.

The consequences of the pandemic have been highly uneven. It has both exacted a horrific human toll and transformed the way we live – the way we work, learn, access medicine, and much more. But over the past year, we experienced something even more far-reaching – a pandemic that has enveloped the entire globe and changed it permanently. I began writing these letters in the wake of the financial crisis. We have long believed that our clients, as shareholders in your company, will benefit if you can create enduring, sustainable value for all of your stakeholders. This is why I write to you each year, seeking to highlight issues that are pivotal to creating durable value – issues such as capital management, long-term strategy, purpose, and climate change. The trust our clients place in us, and our role as the link between our clients and the companies they invest in, gives us a great responsibility to advocate on their behalf. It is their money we manage, not our own. Most of the money we manage is for retirement – for individuals and pension beneficiaries like teachers, firefighters, doctors, businesspeople, and many others. Fink said that he plans to launch a Center for Stakeholder Capitalism to create a “forum for research, dialogue, and debate.” The center will help to explore the relationships between companies and their stakeholders, he said.BlackRock is a fiduciary to our clients, helping them invest for long-term goals.“We are committed to a future where every investor - even individual investors - can have the option to participate in the proxy voting process if they choose.” BlackRock is working to expand an initiative for investors to use technology to cast proxy votes.It will also leave behind the companies that don’t adapt.” “The decarbonizing of the global economy is going to create the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime. Sustainable investments have reached $4 trillion and will continue to rise.“Companies not adjusting to this new reality and responding to their workers do so at their own peril.” The pandemic has fundamentally shifted the nature of work, leading to more turnover and more staff seeking flexibility.BlackRock is also working on an initiative that would give clients more power to vote their proxies. Governments, he said, should offer more guidance on sustainability policy, regulation and disclosure across markets. Philipp Hildebrand, the asset manager’s vice chairman, said in October that BlackRock expects “a vast reallocation of capital toward sustainable products.”įink also prodded shareholders and governments for action. and Chevron Corp., its biggest ESG ETF holds a heavier weighting in 12 fossil-fuel stocks than the S&P 500 does, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, the research arm of Bloomberg.įor BlackRock and others, ESG investing has become a highly lucrative strategy.

The company’s ESG exchange-traded funds not only hold stakes in fossil fuel giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp. “And BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy.” “Divesting from entire sectors - or simply passing carbon-intensive assets from public markets to private markets - will not get the world to net zero,” he said. states have declared that they won’t do business with asset managers that, for example, eschew oil and gas investments.įink used this year’s letter, published on the asset manager’s website late Monday in New York, to clearly state its position on fossil fuels. On the left, progressives complain that BlackRock and others aren’t using their financial clout to do more, faster. But BlackRock’s growth and Fink’s high-profile missives have drawn critics from all corners. It’s also been a major beneficiary of the boom in sustainable investing: its portfolio includes $509 billion in sustainable assets, more than double the amount a year ago. In the decade that Fink’s been writing his letter, BlackRock has ballooned to more than $10 trillion in assets, giving it significant stakes in many large companies. “It is not a social or ideological agenda. “Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics,” Fink wrote in his annual letter to CEOs.