British activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners is aiming its guns at BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, and its CEO Larry Fink, criticising the firm for its ‘hypocrisy’ over its ESG and sustainability practices.
In a letter to Fink that was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Bluebell’s co-chief investment officers Giuseppe Bivona and Marco Taricco argued that BlackRock has changed its positions multiple times on investing in thermal coal production while failing to live up to its stated sustainability commitments.
“The contradictions and apparent hypocrisy of BlackRock’s actions have policitized the ESG debate,” Bluebell wrote. “The reputational damage of being dragged into this politically charged debate, in our view, is very significant because it calls into question the independency of BlackRock as an asset manager.
Failed to support resolutions
Shareholder data reported by the FT shows that Bluebell held approximately 0.01 percent of BlackRock, which has a market value of of 107 billion dollars.
Bluebell said that BlackRock has failed to support its position on environmental shareholder resolutions at mining group Glencore and Belgian chemicals group Solvay.
BlackRock, in a statement, said that Bluebell “in the past 18 months has waged a number of campaigns to promote their climate and governance agenda. BlackRock Investment Stewardship did not support their campaigns as we did not consider them to be in the best economic interest of our clients.”