Politico does a piece on how Texas ‘is barring 349 investment funds from doing business with the state, and 10 other financial services companies, mostly European. The claim is that these companies are implementing fossil fuel boycotts. The 10 companies are: BlackRock, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Jupiter Fund Management, Nordea Bank, Schroders, Svenska Bank, UBS.
The move puts companies like BlackRock in an awkward position: forcing them to publicize their extensive fossil fuel investments as a defense against Texas’ move, while exposing them to criticism from green groups, given their public commitment to accelerate a transition to a net zero emissions economy.’.*..
The move is to stop these companies from doing busine with THE STATE of Texas…
Not IN THE state of Texas….
The folks in Texas do NOT like that these investiment funds are beginning to move their money to support efforts to move away from fossil fuels that come out the ground, which Texas has a lot of….
This is probably going have those investment firms (Which are from EU which has a population 16 BIGGER Texas) can move from Texas to places like New York and California if they feel not welcome….Blue states which are pushing for less fossil fuel reliance…
The state said in a fact sheet that it is not targeting all ESG funds, but rather “the subset of funds that include a specific prohibition or limitation on oil and gas investments.” But the indicators used by the state used to determine if a fund or company was “boycotting” fossil fuels was quite broad, and included “a score which measures a companies’ management of and exposure to key environmental risks and opportunities.”
Texas’ strategy problem: It’s not the EU, or even California. The state’s slogan may be “everything is bigger in Texas,” but the EU’s population is 16 times greater and the Lone Star state has none of the EU’s six decades of experience playing market-bending games.
Note: It’s also not barring companies from doing business in Texas — it’s merely barring them from doing business with the government of the state of Texas, which Republicans pride themselves on trying to keep as small as possible.
The final complication: Blue states like California and New York have the biggest pension funds, which hold more sway with investors. So, overall, while Texas may steal some headlines this week, it’s unlikely to reshape these companies, or the trend toward better ESG.
For that it would need to try something like California’s law to end the sale of combustion engine cars by 2035….