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☆ Did ESG Help Sink SVB?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Kimberley A. Strassel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Kimberley Strassel is a member of the editorial board for The Wall Street Journal. She writes editorials, as well as the weekly Potomac Watch political column, from her base in Alaska. Ms. Strassel joined Dow Jones & Co. in 1994, working in the news department of The Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels, and then in London. She moved to New York in 1999 and soon thereafter joined the Journal's editorial page, working as a features editor, and then as an editorial writer. An Oregon native, Ms. Strassel earned a bachelor's degree in Public Policy and International Affairs from Princeton University.

☆ Enel self-help plan has one known unknown
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, March 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Enel (ENEI.MI) Chief Executive Francesco Starace’s slim-down plan is not getting enough attention. That prompted the group to start aggressively selling assets in places like Chile, Argentina and Romania to cut debt by 21 billion euros. As of Thursday, it had clinched sales equivalent to around 8 billion euros, while net debt had fallen to 60 billion euros. Since taking the helm in 2014, the 67-year-old Italian executive has set the state-controlled power company on a clear green energy trajectory, with one of the biggest green generation pipelines. If Enel replaces its green champion with someone less competent, investors may stay jittery.

☆ Carlsberg CEO’s big job is to keep glass steady
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Carlsberg’s (CARLb.CO) new boss is unlikely to tinker with the company’s corporate recipe. The $21 billion Danish brewer on Thursday named Jacob Aarup-Andersen to replace outgoing Chief Executive Cees ’t Hart. A veteran from a rival brewer might have been better placed to introduce new products, and adapt to new industry trends. However, the new boss’s finance pedigree and track record managing businesses suggests that his main job will be to implement the group’s current strategy. It aims to increase revenue by 3% to 5% annually until 2027 and boost operating profit growth above that level.

☆ Larry Fink's annual letter to BlackRock investors was about getting back to basics
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink GettyImages / Eugene Gologursky1. If you're looking for controversy in Larry Fink's annual open letter to investors, better luck next year. Despite this year's letter clocking in at roughly 9,000 words — have you thought about getting an editor, Larry? — Fink largely avoided discussing a favorite, albeit controversial, topic of his: ESG investing. Click here to read more about Larry Fink's latest annual letter that largely avoided hot political topics.

☆ File Raiffeisen’s sanctions-bypass idea in the bin
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Raiffeisen Bank International thinks it may have found a clever way to repatriate a small part of its Russian assets. Hence the idea to swap its stranded roubles against the frozen euros accumulated by Sberbank, the Kremlin-owned bank forced to unwind its operations by the war in Ukraine. Up to 400 million euros of its assets are now sitting idle in a frozen fund. Promoters of the idea, now being tested with regulators, reckon this might conform with sanctions because the swap would not involve sending hard currency to Russia. In reality, it would allow Russia’s largest bank to recover its frozen money, opening a massive loophole in the sanctions regime.

☆ Stripe’s $50 bln reset is relative sign of health
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Stripe’s valuation cut is arguably still a relative sign of strength. The newly attained price tag is a 53% cut from its 2021 valuation of $95 billion. And by some metrics Stripe seems to be valued at a discount relative to its publicly listed peers. Stripe’s $50 billion is 3.5 times last year’s gross revenue, while Dutch payment firm Adyen (ADYEN.AS) trades on a multiple of 4.7 times. The valuation cut reflects the reality of how an economic slowdown affects fintech businesses like Stripe.

☆ Canada petrol king shows belated faith in own plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO) is expanding its empire of petrol station rest stops. On Thursday, the $44 billion Canadian gas station giant said it would buy some of TotalEnergies’ (TTEF.PA) European assets for 3.1 billion euros. The swoop is also a sign that Couche-Tard is more confident in its own business model than in the recent past. Back then, it seemed Couche-Tard was looking to diversify its empire of highway rest stops. But if EV battery power or home-charging facilities improve, Couche-Tard’s business model may not stack up.

☆ Corporate Sustainability Becomes a Team Sport
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Rochelle Toplensky | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Chief sustainability officers have historically been technical experts focused on helping companies decode their carbon footprint. Today’s CSOs are business-transformation specialists who run point for companies in their sustainability efforts, supported by a team of experts. “You have to start thinking in 2022 about the demands that are going to be a trending topic in 2025.”Judith Wiese, chief people and sustainability officer at Siemens. His team includes experts in technology, industrial processes, financial markets, sustainability frameworks and reporting standards. Agustin Delgado Martin, chief innovation and sustainability officer at Iberdrola.

☆ BlackRock CEO Fink warns of financial risks, persistent inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Ross Kerber | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Larry Fink, Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock, stands at the Bloomberg Global Business forum in New York, U.S., September 26, 2018. Fink wrote that after the regional banking crisis, the financial industry could see what he termed "liquidity mismatches." “It’s too early to know how widespread the damage is,” Fink wrote. BlackRock has previously said its diversified products "have limited exposure to Silicon Valley Bank." "The monetary and fiscal tools available to policymakers and regulators to address the current crisis are limited, especially with a divided government in the United States," Fink wrote.

☆ Larry Fink finds way to dodge ESG crosshairs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, March 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Seismic events elsewhere are making it easier for BlackRock (BLK.N) to inch away from the environmental, social and governance crosshairs. The $8 trillion asset manager’s chair Larry Fink used his annual investor letter to theorise that inflation might stay around 4%, predict stricter bank capital requirements, and namecheck his favourite 80’s band, Talk Talk. BlackRock still backs these objectives, but Fink’s 2023 letter doesn’t even mention ESG. The good news for Fink is that U.S. banking collapses and spiralling inflation mean his detractors’ attention is, at least for now, elsewhere. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Larry Fink, thrust into political crosshairs, dials back ESG talk in his annual letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink published his widely read annual letter to investors on Wednesday. In a shift, Fink kept his discussion of ESG investing to a minimum after a year of backlash. Fink focused on macroeconomic concerns, notably inflation, and the wider energy transition. It is clear that Fink's stance on ESG investing has not changed. In his letter on Wednesday, Fink talked at length about the transition to a low-carbon economy and BlackRock's role in it.

☆ Larry Fink: BlackRock is not the 'environmental police'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Laurence "Larry" Fink, chairman and chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., pauses as he speaks during the BlackRock Asia Media Forum in Hong Kong, China. Justin Chin | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAsset managers like BlackRock are not "the environmental police," Larry Fink said in his annual chairman's letter to investors, which was published on Wednesday. In fact, it's hard to find a part of our ecology – or our economy – that's not affected," Fink wrote. Blackrock has customers who want to invest in the energy transition and others who do not, Fink said, and Blackrock serves both types. BlackRock is investing in natural gas pipelines, with efforts made to mitigate methane emissions from those natural gas pipelines, Fink said.

☆ Republicans are slamming the bailout of Silicon Valley Bank's customers, saying it's a giveaway to the rich
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Federal regulators bailed out Silicon Valley Bank depositors following its Friday collapse. The joint statement made from the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC noted that the bailout will not be funded by taxpayers — the FDIC's insurance fund, which stands at about $125 billion, will cover all SVB depositors. "I don't know if making money's now woke," Baker said. "Banks like S.V.B. President Joe Biden referenced the 2018 law in Monday remarks on SVB, saying that "we must reduce the risks of this happening again."

☆ 'Unprecedented growth': Citi reveals its 4 top stocks in renewables right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Weizhen Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The world is going through a "rapid and transformational change" when it comes to energy, said Citi, naming four stocks to cash in. When it comes to stocks, Citi prefers geographically diversified companies, in particular those with European exposure. "These companies are leaders in their respective domains, are gaining market share, and growing more than overall growth in the sector," Citi's analysts wrote. Shoals "has no residential exposure and is looking to diversify outside the US, which should allow the company to grow at a pace exceeding industry growth," Citi said. "We like the combination of rapid top-line growth from market share gains and new products."

☆ DeSantis and other prominent Republicans blame 'woke' politics for Silicon Valley Bank's collapse instead of bankers miscalibrating risk
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | Nicole Gaudiano | Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Some Republicans blamed "woke" investment strategies for Silicon Valley Bank's downfall. Economists and banking experts so far have chalked up Silicon Valley Bank's failure to much more apolitical circumstances. Silicon Valley Bank then had to sell its assets at a loss to fork over cash it didn't have, an increasingly untenable chain reaction that ended only when regulators shut the institution down. Regulators closed the Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, a stunning break to a period of relative banking stability in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. "I don't know if making money's now woke," Baker said.

☆ GOP House Oversight chairman James Comer criticizes Silicon Valley Bank as 'one of the most woke banks'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

James Comer attributed Silicon Valley Bank's failure to its "woke" ESG investments. "This could be a trend and there are consequences for bad Democrat policy," Comer said on Sunday. Silicon Valley Bank's clients started running for the exits after the bank's management sold $21 billion worth of bonds at a $1.8 billion loss. It has become the biggest bank failure in the US since the 2008 financial crisis. Representatives for Comer and Silicon Valley Bank did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

☆ Is ESG Profitable? The Numbers Don’t Lie
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Mike Edleson | Andy Puzder | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Capitalists invest money, and manage companies, to do well financially. Proponents of so-called woke capitalism claim that companies can do “well” financially by doing “good” politically. Whether this does good is a matter of opinion, but whether it does well can be measured. Woke capitalism makes its way into financial markets through an ill-defined concept known as environmental, social and governance investing. Thus it’s important to know whether politically focused companies actually do produce superior financial results.

☆ Premarket stocks: The Fed wants to limit wage growth. That's particularly bad for women
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

What’s happening: Never-married women earned just 92% of what never-married men did last year, according to the Wells Fargo report. Those wage gaps are “persistently disappointing,” ADP’s Chief Economist Nela Richardson told CNN on Thursday. Markets suffer: Companies with smaller gender pay gaps tend to be rewarded by their shareholders. “The gender pay gap is informing investment strategies,” wrote Refinitiv analysts in a recent report. “Our recent analysis shows that [shares of] companies with no gender pay gap outperform companies with pay gaps between male and female employees,” wrote Refinitiv.

The SFDR defines sustainable investment as contributing to "an environmental or social objective", assessed by indicators such as use of raw materials or production of waste. The people Reuters spoke to said discrepancies among fund portfolios reflected a lack of clarity from the Commission over what constitutes a sustainable investment. Reuters GraphicsReuters GraphicsTEMPERATURE GAUGEMSCI, the finance industry data provider, has developed a way of checking on investment funds' green credentials with its ESG Implied Temperature Rise tool. Among them, for example, are BlackRock's Sustainable Energy Fund, Nordea's Global Climate and Environment Fund and Pictet's Global Environmental Opportunities Fund. "The characterisation of what constitutes a sustainable investment under the SFDR is also a concept that needs further clarifications at European level."

Entities rated by MSCI ESG Research include Adani Green Energy, Adani Power, Adani Total Gas, Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises, according to the statement. This week, MSCI ESG Research flagged all its covered Adani Group entities for the metric of accounting investigations, while some were flagged for the securities valuations metric, it said. "Across various Adani Group entities, MSCI ESG Research has identified issues relating to governance, board independence, related party transactions, and controlling shareholders," the company said. Since the short-seller report release, MSCI ESG Research has added "Bribery and Fraud" and "Governance Structures" controversy cases to all Adani Group companies in its coverage, it said. Sustainability ratings company Sustainalytics downgraded corporate governance-related scores for some Adani Group companies last month.

☆ Morgan Stanley highlights four stocks that are rising stars in the world of ESG investing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Morgan Stanley's list of the biggest rising stars in the socially conscious investing space includes four U.S. stocks. But the stock hugely outperformed last year, rising 25% while the S & P 500 dropped 19.4%. DE 5Y mountain Deere & Co. Another name listed by Morgan Stanley is Eastman Chemical . Management estimates that the Kingsport plant will have a 15% rate of return for the company, while the other plants will likely be closer to 12%, Morgan Stanley said. EMN NFE 1Y mountain Eastman Chemical Nu Holdings , a Brazilian digital banking company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange, also made Morgan Stanley's list.

☆ Eco-Age's Livia Firth: I think we were the first to promote the fact that glamour and ethics coexist
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Tania Bryer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailEco-Age's Livia Firth: I think we were the first to promote the fact that glamour and ethics coexistCo-founder & creative director of Eco-Age and a CNBC ESG Council Member, Livia Firth, tells CNBC's Tania Bryer about The Green Carpet Fashion Awards held during Oscar Week in L.A., the rise of greenwashing and creating a new narrative around sustainable fashion.

☆ Women aren't investing at the same rate as men. Here's why it matters—and how the gap can be closed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Michelle Fox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

BNY Mellon also interviewed 100 global asset managers with $60 trillion in assets under management. One is that the investment industry isn't engaging women to the same degree as men, BNY Mellon's research found. Then there is the high hurdle of the disposable income women think they need to have before they invest. On average, women around the world believe they need $4,092 a month before they would consider investing any of it, BNY Mellon found. "Once you control for income, many of those differences between men and women and investing behaviors kind of disappear.

☆ Exclusive: BlackRock fast-tracks eviction of ESG violators from MSCI-linked ETFs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Virginia Furness | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The ruling covers 35 of its European listed ESG ETFs that track MSCI indices. "We found that there was a desire to re-examine the timescales around the removal of companies with the worst controversies," the spokesperson added. MSCI ESG Controversies measure companies based on actual or alleged involvement across a range of adverse ESG indicators including human rights, child labour and toxic waste. Separately, MSCI introduced a similar set of rules for its MSCI ESG Screened Indexes range in February after a consultation with the broader funds industry that began last year. BlackRock has six ETFs based on MSCI's Screened range with assets of around $15 billon.

☆ Premarket stocks: Jerome Powell's testimony sent markets reeling. That may be a good thing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday cleared the way for larger interest rate hikes at this month’s central bank policy meeting, sending markets into a tailspin. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, the Dow dropped 575 points, or 1.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite ended 1.3% lower. After Powell’s testimony, market expectations for a half-percentage point rate hike spiked. If inflation fails to continue falling, he said, the Fed will keep trying to cool things down by raising rates. Even if Powell was sure that January’s economic data was a fluke, he still wants to maintain the Fed’s credibility.

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