BlackRock halts meetings with companies after SEC cracks down on ESG

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BlackRock has cancelled meetings with companies in the course of shareholder battles as a result of it fears that it may violate steerage on investor activism that the US Securities and Alternate Fee issued final week.

BlackRock and different asset managers sometimes speak with companies about voting forward of activism campaigns and likewise about routine proxy poll points at annual shareholder meetings.

However that apply has been known as into query by the SEC’s steerage, which has been extensively interpreted as an assault on utilizing environmental, social and governance (ESG) components in investing. The change imposes extra onerous regulatory necessities on fund managers that could be searching for to affect company behaviour.

“This steerage exploded like a grenade in the course of pending proxy fights final week,” mentioned Kai Liekefett, a associate at Sidley who’s representing companies in activist fights that may vote imminently.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset supervisor, briefly paused “stewardship” meetings to evaluate what the SEC rule change meant, one individual acquainted with the matter mentioned.

The SEC transfer is an element of a bigger regulatory effort by state and federal officers to rein within the energy of the biggest fund managers, which regularly maintain as a lot as 10 per cent of most US companies due to the sheer measurement of their index-tracking funds.

Till February 11, the SEC mentioned fund managers that owned greater than 5 per cent of an organization weren’t deemed to be “influencing” company behaviour once they prodded companies on points starting from govt compensation to environmental insurance policies. As such, they had been allowed to file a comparatively quick kind about their holdings, often called a 13-G, which is just for “passive buyers.”

Below the brand new guidelines, the standards that will set off a extra onerous 13-D submitting has broadened. Historically, 13-D filings have been largely reserved for activist buyers corresponding to hedge funds or funding managers seeking to affect management.

The steerage complicates the frequent apply amongst massive fund managers of urgent companies to reveal local weather dangers, diversify their boards and take different steps that they are saying are within the curiosity of long-term shareholders.

Whereas a few of these points are carefully tied to the US’s tradition wars, the foundations additionally undermine efforts to eradicate companies’ poison capsule plans and different routine company governance issues which have little to do with environmental and social points. 

The 13-D kind requires detailed explanations of why and the way an investor acquired its stake and its function for investing. Activist buyers additionally face tighter deadlines to file updates on share purchases or gross sales with the SEC.

Whereas “that is an anti-ESG change”, mentioned a lawyer who advises large managers, its knock-on results would span the funding business. “The sensible impact of this can make it more durable to have interaction on ESG subjects, and it’s going to place extra strain on managers when they give thought to how they each instantly and informally have interaction.”

BlackRock, which has greater than $11tn of property beneath administration, has come beneath intense strain from conservative US lawmakers over its affect on company America, given its important holdings in practically each massive listed US firm.

The SEC change got here amid a flurry of actions by the company to maneuver away from the Biden administration’s insurance policies. They had been adopted whereas Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s nominee for SEC chair, waits for Senate affirmation.

BlackRock and the SEC declined to remark. It was not instantly clear whether or not BlackRock’s greatest rivals, Vanguard and State Avenue, additionally cancelled meetings.

Stefania Palma contributed reporting from Washington